MrBeast’s Dad Is a Mystery to Fans, and That’s Exactly How the YouTuber Wants It

The Gist:

MrBeast has more subscribers than anyone else on YouTube, but rarely discusses his father.
According to users on Reddit, that’s because his father regularly abused his mother, and then left their home when he was still a kid.
MrBeast has never addressed his father directly in a video, but his mother used to write a blog about her experiences dealing with domestic abuse.

Despite his incredibly high profile, MrBeast, or Jimmy Donaldson, has managed to keep certain parts of his life fairly private. His YouTube channel is focused on creating insane challenges, and then using the proceeds from those challenges to fund his next elaborate YouTube stunt.

As his following has grown, though, some people have wanted deeper insights into his personal life, and who Jimmy was before he attained YouTube fame. Among the greatest mysteries from Jimmy’s life, people are most curious about his dad is. Here’s what we know.

Who is MrBeast’s dad?

According to users on Reddit, there’s a reason Jimmy basically never talks about his father. Apparently, Jimmy’s father abused his mother and then left the family when he was still a child. His name is Stephen Donaldson, and he has been totally estranged from Jimmy and the rest of the family for years.

Jimmy’s mom, Sue, even wrote about her experiences with his father on a blog, although it has been several years since she posted anything there, and the site has since been removed.

Clearly, Jimmy’s dad left scars on Jimmy and the rest of his family.

Jimmy likely doesn’t enjoy talking or thinking about that part of his life, which may be why it so rarely comes up on his channel. Despite the challenges he puts people up to, Jimmy’s persona is usually relatively sunny, which makes this dark part of his past feel a little unusual.

MrBeast videos are controversial in their own right.

Although Jimmy has never been accused of anything like what his father apparently did, his videos do cause their own kinds of controversy. Usually, that controversy comes from the kinds of things he’s willing to make people do in exchange for offering them cash.

Those stunts can make for entertaining content, but they often involve asking someone to spend days or even weeks trapped some where. Most people are asked to do something they might never do.

Just recently, MrBeast tweeted that he had offered to pay someone $10,000 for every day they spent in a grocery store by themselves. The person has been in their weeks and shows no signs of leaving. “I’m gonna go broke,” Jimmy wrote.

While that sentiment may be amusing, it also feels slightly dystopian to create a system in which some people can only afford to buy a home or pay off their student loans if they get hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing something stupid on some guy’s YouTube channel.