MrBeast has been accused of giving away fake money in his videos.
The YouTube star is known for giving away large amounts of money and in one of his videos, fans noticed that that the dollar bills weren't normal.
Eagle-eyed fans spotted that in one video, 'motion picture' was labelled on the bills rather than the 'United States of America' tag which should have been in its place.
However, the 23-year-old American, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, quickly clarified the issue and informed his viewers that there was a reason for the discrepancy.
Advert
He said that he did it for security reasons - rather than handing over the cash on camera, the YouTuber acknowledged it was a lot safer to write them a cheque instead.
In a 2019 interview with Drama Alert’s Daniel “KEEMSTAR” Keem he explained his decision.
Donaldson said: “Long story short, if you have hundreds of people in one location, and you’re just handing out tons of money – if you’re handing out actual, real money, there are safety and security risks.
Advert
“Imagine when I give someone $10k, and they walk out the door, and all these other people see that you have $10k.
"As a responsible person, I can’t do that.”
“It’s just more security reasons,” he continued. “We can’t have six figures in actual cash there. …it’s just not responsible.”
Well, according to Forbes, has topped the platform’s rich list for last year with reported earnings of $54 million (£39.5 million) in 2021.
Advert
The YouTuber’s haul from 2021 is the most that any creator on the platform has ever made.
In 2020, for example, Ryan Kaji – known as ‘Ryan’s World’ – topped the inaugural list, but MrBeast’s total from the last year is reportedly more than double that.
Over the course of 2021 Donaldson grew his follower base from 50 million to 88 million and he’s currently the eighth most subscribed channel across the entirety of YouTube.
On his channel, his videos have been viewed more than 14 billion times, as fans and subscribers have tuned in to see his viral acts of kindness and often strange contests in which real folks vie for cash prizes.
Advert
That Squid Game video had 200 million views in just over a month, which isn’t far away from how many people actually watched the South Korean show itself.
Sitting behind MrBeast on the rich list is YouTuber and – now – professional boxer Jake Paul.
Jake is a bit of an outlier on this list, given that his YouTube account hasn’t been the most lucrative part of his career.
In total though, he still raked in a reported $45 million (£33 million) and probably won’t care less about whether he earned it from online views or pay-per-views.
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/MrBeastTopics: YouTube