In the early months of 2012, a shy 13-year-old boy called James ‘Jimmy’ Donaldson launched a YouTube channel from his home in the small American city of Greenville, North Carolina.
Using the handle ‘MrBeast6000’, he posted commentaries on popular video games and estimated the wealth of leading social media stars.
Few could have guessed that this was a global celebrity in the making.
Yet, in the intervening 12 years, Donaldson’s YouTube channel has become the most popular — and successful — in the world.
Still only 26, MrBeast, as he is now known by his legion of fans, has amassed a mind-boggling 306million subscribers, most of them young, and an estimated $700million (£550m) fortune, thanks to an alluring mix of pranks, challenges and cash prizes.
It is claimed that Ava Kris Tyson sent inappropriate messages to a 13-year-old child and published a series of ‘unacceptable social media posts’
Along the way he has acquired several more social media channels, a food delivery service and his own brand of chocolate snack.
Yet, today, Donaldson and his sprawling empire lie under a murky and potentially costly shadow. And this is thanks to allegations made against one of Donaldson’s most regular and popular collaborators — a childhood friend in fact.
It is claimed that Ava Kris Tyson sent inappropriate messages to a 13-year-old child and published a series of ‘unacceptable social media posts’, which have since been deleted.
In one unsettling post from 2016, for example, Tyson, now 28, wrote of becoming aroused after looking at some ‘loli’ — which is short for ‘lolicon’ and refers to a Japanese form of virtual porn featuring young (or at least young-looking) girls in sexual contexts.
The online reaction has been prodigious — and no wonder. As Katya Varbanova, a social media consultant, told the Mail last week: ‘History has shown us allegations could have serious repercussions for personal brands — even when [the alleged acts are] committed by [collaborators] and friends.’
Especially, you might add, when the market for that ‘brand’ is focused on content largely aimed at children and teenagers.
It is certainly a rare hiccup for a man whose empire has grown rapidly in recent years after an inauspicious start.
MrBeast spent his first five years posting videos on YouTube without much traction, while his mother demanded he concentrate on his education instead.
Tyson, left, was a co-host for MrBeast’s YouTube channel and the two are long-time friends
Enrolling at Greenville’s East Carolina University, Donaldson dropped out after just two weeks — which were mostly spent editing videos in his car.
‘That’s all I ever talked about at school,’ he explained in an interview last year. ‘People would tell me, “All you do is talk about YouTube videos. You’re too obsessed with YouTube. Get a life.”‘
His mother was so enraged by his decision to abandon his studies that she apparently asked him to leave home.
Yet her son would soon be vindicated — and in the most unexpected way.
In 2017, then aged 19, he released a video showing him — of all things — counting to 100,000. It quickly earned a cult following.
Donaldson amassed tens of thousands of views in just a few days.
Today, he is known for fast-paced videos with high-production values and featuring elaborate challenges. Donaldson has re-enacted elements of the cult Netflix show Squid Game, for example, has been filmed tying up an FBI agent and has crashed a train into a giant pit.
It should be acknowledged that, alongside these eye-popping — some might say pointless — stunts, MrBeast has performed laudable acts of philanthropy.
In January 2023, he paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 blind people, allowing them to see again. He has donated 20,000 pairs of shoes to children in Africa.
And, all the while, his profile has grown at an apparently unstoppable pace. Today, most of his new videos attract hundreds of millions of views.
Donaldson earned £42million last year alone, according to Forbes magazine. Only last month, he overtook the Indian music label T-Series to snatch the crown of biggest YouTuber in the world.
James ‘Jimmy’ Donaldson, known online as MrBeast6000, has amassed 306million subscribers and an estimated $700million (£550m) fortune thanks to an alluring mix of pranks, challenges and cash prizes
Such success has seen brickbats hurled his way. In recent years it has been alleged that he presided over a toxic workplace.
In 2018, a former editor on his channel, Matt Turner, claimed that working for MrBeast was the ‘most mentally draining’ part of his life, alleging that he was yelled at and bullied.
Turner later apologised after it was pointed out that he had also issued a gushing statement of gratitude to Donaldson when they first parted company.
Others take a dim view of the social experiments broadcast on Donaldson’s site in which, for example, he invites people to spend time living in grocery stores or an isolation chamber for cash prizes.
One critic suggested the YouTuber was turning into ‘more and more of a demented Black Mirror-style gameshow host’ with each passing day – turning the dystopian into real life.
Yet Donaldson has managed to emerge from such criticism largely unscathed — until now.
The fact that these latest claims have been made against a friend and colleague make them harder to shrug off.
Like Donaldson, Tyson grew up in North Carolina and was involved in his friend’s channel from the beginning.
Matters have been further complicated by Tyson’s recent change of gender. Now a trans woman, Ava Kris Tyson was a married man known to the world as Chris until last year.
His announcement that she would henceforth be known as Ava led to a stream of hate-filled comments on social media — which in turn led to Donaldson intervening on behalf of his friend to appeal for an end to what he called ‘transphobia’.
In 2017, then aged 19, ‘MrBeast’ released a video showing him – of all things – counting to 100,000. It quickly earned a cult following
In March 2023, Tyson revealed that she and her wife — with whom she has a young son — had been separated for a year and that she had started hormone replacement therapy.
The reaction was not universally positive: while many fans expressed support, there was a backlash on other social media channels.
In response MrBeast made his first public intervention.
‘This is getting absurd,’ he posted on Twitter. ‘Chris isn’t my ‘nightmare’ he’s my f****** friend and things are fine. All this transphobia is starting to p*** me off.’
Then, earlier this month, the tables were turned. From being a victim of abuse, Tyson now stands accused of predatory behaviour.
It emerged, for example, that, at the age of 20, Tyson had been introduced to a 13-year-old by the name of ‘Lava’ after the girl or boy — we don’t know which — won a contest on MrBeast’s YouTube channel.
Tyson and Lava are said to have spent years exchanging messages that Lava — now an adult whose identity has not been revealed — now admits are ‘inappropriate’ and ‘edgy’.
Meanwhile several videos have been released claiming to show Instagram posts of Lava, then 16, visiting Tyson as he studied at university. The Mail has not been able to verify these claims.
Lava, now 20, has denied that anything was amiss, posting on Twitter that Ava ‘never did anything wrong’ and that the video claims ‘are massive lies and twisting the truth’.
The controversy did not end there.
Several more questionable social media posts by Tyson have now surfaced showing him — as he then was — interacting with a controversial artist called Shadman, who is known for drawing young characters in sexual poses.
At one point, Tyson asked Shadman to ‘draw a 10-year-old anime girl’ while, in another, he referred to an image of a 14-year-old character from Disney’s The Incredibles, Violet, as ‘low-key cute’.
All the tweets have since been deleted, and a few weeks ago Tyson — whose Twitter account has now been set to private — issued an apology for her ‘past behaviour and comments’.
She announced she was stepping back from the MrBeast channel and from social media ‘to focus on my family and mental health’.
Then came a lengthy message from Donaldson himself, who posted a statement on X saying:
‘Over the last few days, I’ve become aware of the serious allegations of Ava Tyson’s behaviour online and I am disgusted and opposed to such unacceptable acts. During that time, I have been focused on hiring an independent third party to conduct a thorough investigation to ensure I have all the facts. That said, I’ve seen enough online and taken immediate action to remove Ava from the company, my channel, and any association with MrBeast.
‘I do not condone or support any of the inappropriate actions. I will allow the independent investigators the necessary time to conduct a comprehensive investigation and will take any further actions based on their findings.’
Donaldson earned £42million last year alone, according to Forbes magazine, and last month he overtook Indian music label T-Series as the YouTube channel with the most subscribers
The YouTuber is known for fast-paced videos featuring elaborate challenges. He has re-enacted elements of the cult Netflix show Squid Game, for example
Talk of ‘independent investigators’, of course, is all a long way from the zany world that MrBeast worked so hard to create — but which might yet come crashing down around his ears.
As PR expert Mark Borkowski points out, it’s a ‘complex situation’, given that a number of childhood friends including Tyson were integral to the brand.
‘This tight group have been ever-present throughout his rise to the top,’ Borkowski told the Mail last week.
‘The problem from here on out is that it’s a live issue with millions speculating on the internet.
‘The longer this is left without an answer, the more conspiracy theories surface and the more ferocious this saga becomes.’
Those sentiments were echoed by Katya Varbonova, who says a serious response is now required — and soon.
‘Could these allegations make a permanent dent on the MrBeast brand? Probably not,’ she says.
But it could be a very expensive problem to clear up, all the same.
‘In the short term,’ she concludes, ‘this could be financially catastrophic.’
