By Tom Gerken
Technology reporter
Top YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson is suing the company behind his fast food chain, and says fans called the food “revolting”.
Donaldson, the biggest YouTuber in the world with 172 million subscribers, opened MrBeast Burger in 2020.
He claims Virtual Dining Concepts – the company behind the burger – is hurting his brand and reputation by serving a subpar product.
He is asking a judge to give him the right to terminate the arrangement.
Donaldson is known for his philanthropy, as well as videos featuring huge prizes and cash giveaways.
The legal action, filed in New York on Monday, accuses Virtual Dining Concepts of not ensuring the quality of the burgers, claiming they were at times “inedible”.
“As a result, MrBeast Burger has been regarded as a misleading, poor reflection of the MrBeast brand,” the lawsuit claims, going on to say it “has caused material, irreparable harm to the MrBeast brand and MrBeast’s reputation”.
It also claims Donaldson “has not received a dime” from the partnership.
The BBC has approached Virtual Dining Concepts for comment.
Donaldson has previously apologised to fans on Twitter who were disappointed by their food, and said he “can’t get out of” his deal with the company.
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MrBeast Burger delivers from more than 1,000 so-called “ghost kitchens” worldwide.
Also known as dark kitchens or virtual restaurants, these are food delivery services which operate out of the kitchens of other businesses.
For example, in early 2022 fans in London could have a MrBeast Burger delivered to them from Shoreditch, in the east of the city, where it was made in the kitchen of a different burger joint – Dirty Bones.
It drew national media attention in September 2022, when Donaldson filled a shopping centre in the US with thousands of fans for the opening of his first bricks-and-mortar burger restaurant.
Fans queued for hours for a burger, and a chance to meet him at the location, in New Jersey.
Donaldson has the second-largest YouTube channel in the world, and is the most-subscribed individual creator on the platform.
The only channel bigger than his belongs to Indian record label T-Series, which features thousands of Hindi-language music videos.
In 2021, he launched a separate philanthropy-themed YouTube channel, which itself has more than 10 million subscribers, and he has a licensed charity that functions as a food bank to feed communities across the US.
