Inside the MrBeast Lawsuit: Allegations of Harassment, Retaliation, and a Mother in Labor on Slack

The case was filed on a Wednesday, just one day before Jimmy Donaldson—known to practically every child with a phone as MrBeast—was scheduled to travel to New York to be honored alongside Pope Leo XIV and Donald Trump at the TIME100 gala. Although Lorrayne Mavromatis’s attorneys haven’t commented as much, the timing seems almost too exact to be a coincidence.

In a federal complaint filed in North Carolina, they claim that she was fired less than three weeks after returning from maternity leave and that she had worked for years in a hostile, gender-biased, and relentlessly intense workplace that didn’t stop for childbirth.

She claims that from her hospital bed, she was participating in a team call. in the middle of contraction. She was terrified that turning down the meeting would cost her the job, so she held her breath in between sentences. She told the Associated Press, “I was still bleeding, and I just had to show up.” It’s difficult to ignore the contrast between that quote and the upbeat, sugar-rush aesthetic of the MrBeast brand, which includes giveaways, chocolate bars, and smiling thumbnails.

The parent company, Beast Industries, is not taking the accusations lightly. A representative referred to the complaint as “deliberate misrepresentations” and “categorically false,” and they provided a screenshot from Slack showing a coworker telling Mavromatis that she “shouldn’t even be checking” her messages while giving birth. According to the company’s interpretation of the exchange, they attempted to shield her. According to her interpretation, she had already canceled the meeting from a maternity ward when the message arrived. Technically, both can be correct. Neither seems to tell the whole tale.

The nature of what the lawsuit describes is what gives it more weight than a single dismissal. According to reports, a 36-page internal document titled “How to Succeed in MrBeast Production” contained statements such as “It’s okay for the boys to be childish” and “the amount of hours you work is irrelevant.””

The CEO at the time, Donaldson’s cousin, told Mavromatis that Jimmy “gets really awkward around beautiful women” when she asked him why he wouldn’t look her in the eye. The company later linked this comment to Donaldson’s Crohn’s disease, but that explanation came after the fact and only addressed one aspect of the comment. She claims she was demoted into what the lawsuit refers to as a “obscure role” after reporting concerns to HR, which was overseen by Donaldson’s mother. The business disputes that.

Beast Industries’ culture has previously been criticized. After allegations involving a longtime collaborator and minors prompted a third-party investigation two years ago, Donaldson promised in an internal email to create a secure workplace. A number of people were let go. The business moved on, made aggressive hiring decisions from TikTok and NBCUniversal, acquired a teen banking app, and partnered with Amazon. The empire continued to expand. However, in cases like this, pattern is important, and part of the reason this new lawsuit reads less like a singular complaint and more like an inquiry into whether anything has truly changed is because of that previous round of issues.

As this develops, it seems like Beast Industries is in the awkward stage where a creator-led business begins acting like a corporation but hasn’t yet mastered the corporate aspect. Perhaps that reckoning is required by the lawsuit. Perhaps it settles down and is forgotten. It’s still unclear how this will turn out, but accusations like these are especially hard to avoid for a brand whose whole appeal rests on the impression that everyone is having a good time.