LOS ANGELES — The packets of documents strewn across a table in Rosanna Pansino’s office aren’t immediately decipherable — even to someone who has closely followed her crusade against the internet’s most popular creator: MrBeast.
Some are heavy with text and marked up with highlighters. Others feature screenshots of social media posts. The most ornate Pansino created herself: a hand-drawn diagram mapping a large and complex network of companies and people Pansino believes are affiliated with MrBeast, one of the most successful and popular content creators in the history of the internet.
Over the past month or so, Pansino has aggregated various allegations she says she received about unsafe work conditions during the filming of MrBeast’s upcoming Amazon Prime Video reality show “Beast Games,” which promises an expected 1,000 contestants the chance to win a $5 million cash prize. More recently, she added to her investigation a flurry of other accusations made by others both online and offline.
It’s a departure from the lighthearted baking videos that made Pansino, 39, one of YouTube’s first stars.
“I thought maybe I’d retire in a few years, because I’m just in that happy place,” she said, sitting in her living room after organizing her notes. “But it’s really awakened something in me, where, after you hear all these stories and you see everything going on, I can’t in good conscience do nothing.”
A global digital entrepreneur known for his high-dollar giveaways and elaborate challenges, MrBeast, 26, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has amassed more than 313 million YouTube subscribers in 12 years.
Much of his popularity comes from his large-scale YouTube stunts and ambitious philanthropic projects, which have earned him widespread admiration. He maintains a passionate fanbase that continues to grow, although critics have questioned the ethics of building a vast business empire and personal riches from fleeting feel-good content with unclear long-term outcomes.
The fight is on
Pansino makes for an unlikely foil to Donaldson. Standing less than five feet tall, the baking YouTuber with 14.5 million subscribers is best known for the cheery videos that she’s made for more than a decade. Her severe dyslexia sometimes trips her up while speaking or perusing her notes, but those moments of frustration don’t temper her gregarious personality.
Far from the kind of drama that some creators court, Pansino has quietly built a successful brand through her long-running “geeky” online cooking show “Nerdy Nummies,” her baking product line, as well as her cookbooks and occasional film and TV gigs, such as the baking show she hosted on HBO Max. Family-friendly baking content is what viewers turn to her for — and it’s still what she loves to do.
But since speaking out on X about numerous accusations she says she’s collected regarding unsafe working conditions during a promotional shoot for Donaldson’s “Beast Games,” Pansino said she feels she’s become an advocate for people who have worked under him — whether in his latest competition show or as an employee.
Although she has circulated many of the “Beast Games” allegations online, Pansino was not personally at the shoot. NBC News spoke to six former contestants, five of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. They said there wasn’t enough food on set and that they witnessed medics responding to a contestant who appeared to pass out.
One contestant, William, who asked to be identified by his first name only, said he and others got “trampled” during the shoot. He said he saw Donaldson upset trying to get people food and water, noting that “he did try to do what he can. I feel like people are painting it that he did this like maliciously but at the end of the day I feel like everybody was woefully unprepared.”
Pansino said she’s known Donaldson for about five years and has worked on multiple projects with him, including attempts at business ventures together. She participated in three installments of his Creator Games series, a YouTube original production that filmed various internet personalities competing against each other for a cash prize.
The creator first publicly criticized Donaldson in October last year, when she accused him of editing her out of the top three finalists in Creator Games 3. The story drew in online harassment that quickly escalated into death threats.
Within days, she wrote in a text to Donaldson that she would be deleting all her posts “and will make an apology. Nothing in the world is worth mine and my family’s safety.” In a now-deleted statement on X, Pansino publicly apologized to Donaldson and announced that she had removed her posts about the situation.
Still, Pansino said she stands by her original comments.
She decided to speak out against Donaldson again this year, this time airing her concerns about “Beast Games” after a stream of contestants messaged her about their experiences. Days after her initial posts drew attention, The New York Times, which interviewed more than a dozen anonymous contestants, reported on several allegations of injuries on set as well as inadequate access to food and medical care.
A spokesperson for Donaldson told NBC News that this first shoot, which included 2,000 participants, was “unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues” that the team is currently reviewing.
A liaison for hundreds
Despite Donaldson’s online fame, the YouTube star had never confronted serious or lasting backlash throughout his yearslong reign on the platform. In recent months, however, he has faced a whirlwind of controversy — first involving his former collaborator Ava Kris Tyson’s alleged inappropriate messages to a minor (which Tyson and the alleged victim, who is no longer a minor, have denied), then due to the allegations around the shooting of “Beast Games.”
And around the time Pansino began posting about “Beast Games,” several alleged ex-employees of Donaldson — including former MrBeast writer Jake Weddle and YouTuber Dawson French (who goes by the alias DogPack404) — began uploading their own videos making varied accusations against their alleged former boss.
After Weddle spoke about his experience filming a video that put him in solitary confinement for days, he claimed in an update that Donaldson apologized and offered $190,000 for the mental stress incurred, displaying a screenshot of the alleged direct message in a video.
Pansino said she is also in contact with roughly 30 former and current MrBeast LLC employees about the workplace culture at Donaldson’s production company.
“I think that they feel that they can trust me because I am one of the only large creators that has spoke up about my negative experience working with Jimmy,” Pansino said, “and I also let it publicly be known that I am going to start speaking up more and trying to hold people accountable, especially him and the people at his company.”
Still, Donaldson’s YouTube channel has continued to gain millions of subscribers in the weeks since the controversies began, and he has carried on uploading his usual videos.
Ready for backlash
Several longtime friends of Pansino said they’ve never known her as one to insert herself in internet drama, but that they were also unsurprised to see her take a stand against Donaldson.
Jen Spada, a hometown friend who met Pansino more than a decade ago through her sister and managing director Molly Lu, said that the creator “cares deeply” about people and has always exhibited a “very strong sense of fairness.”
“Even though she hasn’t gotten involved in many controversies in the past, it’s more like [Creator Games 3] was one that was very obvious and really affected her,” Spada said. “And when she started to speak up more and more, people started reaching out to her, and then she recognized, ‘I can use my platform as a voice for these other people.’”
Joey Graceffa, a fellow OG YouTuber who has regularly collaborated with Pansino, said his friend of nearly 10 years still gives off a “sweet grandma vibe.” Recently, however, he said he has watched her evolve into someone who is more open to expressing her thoughts online, even as some online question her intentions for speaking out.
When she first shared on X her concerns around “Beast Games,” some users replied suggesting she held a personal vendetta against Donaldson for her past negative experience with him, or that she might be seeking attention by going after the world’s biggest creator. Pansino has also posted on X defending herself against someone who accused her of “grifting.”
“It’s really scary putting yourself out there and standing up for what you think is right, and the fear of the death threats and all that would be enough to stop anyone from continuing talking about something,” Graceffa said. “So for people who do think she’s just doing this for attention, I would have to say: Would you want that kind of negativity being thrown at you, those threats?”
Describing the harassment she received when she first spoke out about her Creator Games 3 experience with Donaldson, Pansino said she thought she was having a heart attack: “My heart started hurting so bad. I found out later that was a panic attack, but I started shaking, and I was on the ground, and I started vomiting and I just wanted it to stop.”
But Pansino said she’s more equipped to handle the backlash this time around.
“Being a baker online for so many years and just bringing joy to people, that was just very intense,” she said. “I’ve never been through something like that before. I think that it changed me, and it made me want to get smarter and stronger.”
Holding back tears as she spoke, Pansino recounted talking to her legal team and other authorities about how to report and better protect herself against future death threats. Her home is now outfitted with security measures.
She added that, although she still feels some fear now, “I feel more strong and more brave, and I feel a calling to do what’s right more than I am scared.”
Pansino said she understands why many creators might be fearful of getting on Donaldson’s bad side, and that they might not want to risk losing business partnerships or collabs with one of the world’s most powerful internet personalities. At the same time, she said, she can’t help but feel frustrated.
As for her own repercussions, Pansino said her managers have gotten concerned calls from brands who are reconsidering working with her — just as many of her friends warned would happen. But she said her income is diversified enough that she no longer relies on YouTube monetization or brand partnerships to remain financially stable.
She’s finishing up a new poolside studio that she’s building in her backyard, with a full kitchen setup and loungelike area where she plans to film future content. And when she’s not in her office drawing mind maps, she continues to dote on her three French bulldogs Blueberry Muffin, Honey Bun and Coconut, who are quick to waddle after her wherever she goes.
Having crafted an entire career out of her love for baking, Pansino said her pure enjoyment of the activity has never waned. And whether she pivots to new genres or retires today, she said she’ll probably continue to bake for the rest of her life.
“Next for me, I’d really like to start a family,” Pansino said. “I’m finally in that happy place that I worked so hard to come to.”
