Content creator MrBeast has been forced to address his latest stunt after people accused him of putting someone's life at risk.
The American YouTuber is the single most subscribed-to channel on the platform, with over 440 million people signed up to his content at the time of writing.
It's fair to say that his videos have come with a lot of backlash from viewers, who are ready to point out anything he may be doing wrong - but his latest stunt seems to have stirred the pot more than normal.
It's titled 'Would You Risk Dying For $500,000?', and the snippet posted onto several social media accounts caused many to speak out about what the Kansas-native was thinking.
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Real name Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast has since responded to the comments himself, both on YouTube and on Twitter.
The video itself was posted by a third-party account, as they said the person was 'trapped' in a 'burning' house with the prospect of winning $500,000 on the line.
Out of context, the challenge looks pretty wild while being a step above his past videos, which often involve people staying in a confined area for a certain number of days for a handsome prize fund.
But in this video, the man is subjected to surviving 'seven death traps', each give him a chance to win hundreds of thousands of dollars, though the challenges are incredibly daunting.
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The first challenge is the one shown in the video, where he is tied to a chair while the house around him is set on fire. His goal is to retrieve the bags of cash worth $500k behind him before the house burns down or he catches fire.
In the end, he managed to get half of the cash before the flames became too large.
One viewer: "Yikes… MrBeast really taking ‘high stakes’ to a whole new level," with another saying: "For the sake of entertainment I guess. I thought Idiocracy was the future, now realizing we’re already living it."
Donaldson has since replied to these claims, writing in the comments of the viral snippet: "This blew up, if you’re curious obviously we had ventilation for the smoke and a kill switch to cut off the fires.
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"We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stuntman. I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine."
Other stunts in the video included setting fireworks off and running behind protective glass, being fired out of a human cannon, and even being fired through rings of fire with prize money on the line.
MrBeast further expanded on the saftey measures put in place for the video.
MrBeast took to the comments of the video, adding: "In case there’s any concern about the safety of the stuntman contestant, I just wanted to mention that we take safety extremely seriously. Every challenge was tested by multiple stuntmen, we have a full rescue team on standby with firefighters, EMTs and divers equipped with an ambulance and fire truck.
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"We also had a pyro team controlling the fires and multiple fire suppression methods on every challenge to ensure we could essentially turn off the fire if there was ever an issue. But our stunt coordinator did an amazing job as always, and none of these systems were ever needed. Just wanted to be transparent with you all since I saw some concern!" he added.
By the end of the video, the stuntman in question managed to win $350,000 in total - not too shabby.
Topics: MrBeast, YouTube, Social Media
Joshua Nair