MrBeast has defended a recent controversial stunt shared via his YouTube channel, but people are concerned about the impact his content could have on kids regardless of how “safe” his challenges are. If you’re not familiar with MrBeast, he’s a YouTube star known for elaborate stunts and challenges. On September 27, he shared a video titled, “Would You Risk Dying For $500,000?” The stunt video racked up more than 54 million views, but also garnered a lot of criticism, with critics going so far as to call the YouTuber “evil.”
The video showed someone trapped inside a burning building.
The reason people thought his recent challenge was super dangerous and “evil” is because a man in the video was locked inside a burning building and tied to a chair. He also had to complete various “death traps,” including “getting shot out of a cannon into fire” and “surviving massive fiery explosions,” to win a cash prize.
On social media, people slammed MrBeast for putting someone in danger for entertainment. “I do appreciate the new honesty of MrBeast,” one X user wrote in response to the recent stunt. “He’s just like, ‘Ya, I torture people for entertainment, it’s my thing.'”
Another critic wrote, “MrBeast is a cartoonishly evil ‘philanthropist’. Putting somebody tied to a chair in a burning room with [$]500K and tell them grab them as much as money they can before it or THEM burns up.”
In response to the backlash, MrBeast said he’s ‘serious’ about safety.
Numerous social media users were horrified by how dangerous the stunt looked. Another X user called MrBeast “evil” and compared his challenges to “the plot of dystopian series like Squid Game and The Hunger Games.”
But MrBeast tried to assure critics that he takes safety very seriously, actually. Responding to an X post that read “MrBeast had a contestant TRAPPED inside a BURNING house to win $500,000 in his new video,” MrBeast wrote, “This blew up, if you’re curious obviously we had ventilation for the smoke and a kill switch to cut off the fires. We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stunt man. I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine.”
But some critics were still not impressed.
After all, MrBeast’s alleged commitment to safety did not exactly come across as “obvious” to viewers — especially young viewers. “Oh yea, so ‘obvious,'” someone wrote back.
Others pointed out that children might watch MrBeast’s stunts and not understand just how dangerous they can be. “What message does this teach to your audience of children?” one critic questioned. Another person argued that “adults will know,” but children won’t necessarily get it: “You are the source of inspiration for them,” they pointed out.
“What do you mean ‘obviously’?” someone else responded. “Your primary audience is children. There’s nothing obvious here except for your first points from the start of the video like ‘surviving fiery explosions’ which obviously sounds like willingly endangering someone for money.”
A fifth critic added, “It’s still not a good example for the current generation who follow you on YouTube.”
MrBeast explained his safety measures in more detail on YouTube.
This blew up, if you’re curious obviously we had ventilation for the smoke and a kill switch to cut off the fires. We had professionals test this extensively and the guy in the video as stated is a professional stunt man. I take safety more serious than you could ever imagine.
— MrBeast (@MrBeast) September 29, 2025
In a comment on his own video, he wrote, “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 standbywith firefighters, EMTs, and divers equipped with an ambulance and fire truck.”
He continued with, “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!”
Still, critics didn’t find it acceptable. Several people pointed out that in spite of the measures in place, it still seemed really dangerous and “diabolical.” They questioned why he would do something like this in the first place. One person argued, “If you took safety seriously you wouldn’t have done this challenge.”
