- YouTuber Rosanna Pansino accused MrBeast of unfairly editing her appearance in one of his videos.
- However, after a few days, Pansino deleted all her posts and apologized.
The internet turned on a YouTuber who accused MrBeast of unfairly editing her in one of his videos, accusing her of doubling down for attention.
MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, has held several massive challenges as part of his Creator Games events.
One was a stadium-wide game of hide-and-seek featuring ten of YouTube's biggest creators, titled "Extreme $1,000,000 Hide and Seek."
Rosanna Pansino, a YouTuber with 14.5 million subscribers, was among them. She's best known for her lifestyle content covering baking and trying on costumes.
On October 27, Pansino posted a statement to X where she said she had performed much better than it seemed in the video.
She said she had actually come in third place, even though the video showed Logan Paul, Larray, and Zach King being the top three.
Pansino first brought the situation up on Trisha Paytas' podcast the day before, on October 26. She said she had refrained from saying anything due to Donaldson's fierce fanbase (he is the number 1 YouTuber in the world with 206 million subscribers).
Afterwards, she went ahead with the statement, saying Donaldson "edited the video to make me look like I performed worse than I did."
"This was extra upsetting because I genuinely believed him when he said that his videos are 'authentic and real,'" she wrote. "He edited the video to like the final three people were Larray, Logan Paul, and Zach King. The final three people were actually Zach, Quackity, and myself."
Pansino then appeared on the H3 Podcast to speak further. She said when bad things happened to her in life, she tended to hold it all in, but this time she decided to stand up for herself.
A day later, on October 28, Pansino posted several screenshots of a private conversation between her and Donaldson. The messages show Donaldson reached out first and asked for her phone number to "see if we can figure out what happened."
Pansino replied, saying she was "really hurt by the editing decisions" Donaldson made, but her intention was "not to be malicious or create drama."
"I have stayed silent for so long it's causing me mental stress and anguish," she wrote. "It's not mentally healthy for me to have someone make me look worse than I am to millions of people. I would never do that to a fellow creator."
Donaldson told her he "wasn't trying to make anyone look bad" and asked for time to look into the situation. In the final message that is visible, Pansino also offered to look through the raw footage "to help show the timeline of events." It isn't clear whether they spoke further.
Pansino was initially met with support for speaking up. People said they understood why she had been upset by Donaldson's editing decisions, and called for him to make things right.
But opinions shifted over the next few days as Pansino continued to post statements. In one, she said the response had been "overwhelming."
"I was scared to tell my story for a long time because of how much hate others have gotten in the past for speaking up about their own experiences," she wrote.
"In the hours since posting my story I have received at least 3 other messages from female creators who have had similar experiences with Mr Beast and those around him."
She added others coming forward made her "realize that I'm not as alone as I once thought I was."
Some took issue with the wording of this particular statement. Paige Christie, a YouTuber who reports on internet personalities, said in a post on X that she thought Pansino's approach was misleading.
"I've watched this woman overplay her hand over the past 2 days and quite frankly turn a non serious situation into something that HAS READ AS IF SHE IS A VICTIM of something far more substantial than unfair gameplay," Christie said.
She said using phrases such as "survival stories" and "scared to tell my story" suggested something "insidious" had happened
"It did not," she said. "It was a minor inconvenience, and just a shitty thing someone did."
Keemstar, a YouTuber who hosts one of the platform's most prominent news shows "Drama Alert," also said Pansino's post looked like a "me too" statement, the catch-all term used for victims speaking out about sexual abuse.
Some also questioned why Pansino decided to bring up the issue almost two years after the video was published.
On October 29, Pansino deleted all the posts and apologized to Donaldson — who had not discussed the matter in public at all.
"I should have expressed my feelings privately and handled things directly," Pansino said. "I will be removing all of the posts where I talk about Creator Games and Jimmy."
She said she had received death threats since posting her statements, which was a contributing factor. But she also seemed to concede that some criticism of her was valid.
That statement, and all others referring to Donaldson, have now been deleted.
Pansino posted once more on November 2, saying she "retracted" the apology, and cryptically referred to "new information" and "developments behind the scenes." She deleted this post as well after a few hours. Donaldson has not publicly addressed the situation at all.
Insider has reached out to Pansino and Donaldson for comment.