Whether or not you’re a fan of MrBeast, the buzz around Beast Games – touted as the most expensive game show ever – has caught everyone’s attention.
Known by his real name, Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast dominates YouTube with 362 million subscribers, largely due to his unique competitions where he hands out massive sums of money and extraordinary prizes, such as a private island in The Bahamas.
While he has independently given away tens of millions of dollars, MrBeast collaborated with Amazon Prime for Beast Games to offer a staggering $10 million to the show’s winner, but there’s a twist.
First, let’s delve into the nature of the game show and its structure.
Drawing inspiration from the Netflix series Squid Game, the show features intricate challenges and tasks for participants.
A total of 1,000 contestants engaged in demanding physical and mental trials for a chance to win the grand prize of $10 million. With the show airing on Amazon Prime in December, it has become the largest cash prize in reality TV history.
Spoiler alert! The finale boiled down to the last six players, eventually narrowing to just Jeffrey Randall Allen and Twana Barnett.
Allen, known as player 831, had to select which of the 10 briefcases before him concealed a $10 million cheque, hidden by Barnett.
He guessed correctly, securing the enormous cash prize.
Upon learning of his $10 million win, Allen soon discovered that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the body responsible for enforcing US federal tax laws, claimed a significant portion of it.
Indeed, nearly half of the prize went to taxes.
A tweet commented on the situation: “The winner of MrBeast’s $10,000,000 ‘Beast Games’ prize will only receive $5.03 million after taxes.”
This sparked a quick response from MrBeast, who wrote in quotations ‘Only’, suggesting that the situation wasn’t as dire as the tweet implied.
The comment section lit up with reactions, including one user saying: “Yeah, only. You have 10 million and they only got half. So it’s only relative to the stated amount. This is about how bad taxes are, not you.”
Another added: “That’s still a HEFTY slice off the top even if there’s 5 mill left.”
A third contributed: “Same time.. 50% tax is pretty bonkers.. I can see 1/3rd at most. And the fact that we’re programmed to think 1/3 tax is a good deal, shows how far taxes have gone…”
Meanwhile, some fans humorously pointed out that the IRS emerged as the true winner.
One quipped: “Amazing. So technically IRS is also competing silently.”
“Congrats to the IRS for winning Beast Games,” another chimed in.