MrBeast addresses the Mexico Mayan temple controversy and denies being sued by the government

On May 18, 2025, Jimmy "MrBeast" addressed the controversy surrounding his usage of Mayan temple sites in a YouTube video and subsequent reports claiming that the Mexican government is in the process of taking legal action against the YouTuber. Jimmy has denied that he or his team is being sued by the government, and gave clarification about the controversy.

For those out of the loop, on May 16, 2025, various news outlets such as the BBC reported that the Mexican government is seeking compensation from the producers of the MrBeast YouTube video titled I Explored 2000 Year Old Ancient Temples. The complaint supposedly raised by the authorities mentioned in the report was regarding the placement of an ad for the YouTuber's Feastables chocolate bar.

MrBeast has now addressed the controversy in a post on X and claimed that his team has not been sued by anyone due to the video:

"I’ve seen a lot of stories about our recent video in Mexico and wanted to clear some false things being said. Me and my team have great respect for the Mexican and Mayan culture and people. We did this video to get people all over the world excited to learn more about their culture, much like we did with our Pyramids video. We are not and have never been sued by them lol."

The YouTuber also clarified that his team had full permits to film at the locations in the video and stated that they had followed all the related guidelines. MrBeast also shared a screenshot of a post from the Governor of Campeche, Layda Sansores, defending him and wrote:

"We filmed with full permits, followed guidelines, had representatives from government agencies following us, Mexican archeologists to make sure we were accurate, AND representatives from the sites to ensure we were following the rules. The governor of the state we shot in even came out in our defense."

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MrBeast claims the Mexican authorities knew about the Feastables bit in the YouTube video

After denying the reports of legal action being taken against his team, MrBeast also claimed that the Mexican authorities were aware of the fact that Feastables would be mentioned in the YouTube video. He also clarified that out of respect for the Mayan temples, the bit with the chocolate bar was filmed away from the archeological sites:

"They were aware of us mentioning Feastables in the video but for respect of the sites, it was filmed off site from any national monuments. The dinner scene where I made the Feastables joke was not near any mayan temples."

In the same post, the famous YouTuber announced that his team had engaged in some philanthropic work while filming in Mexico as well. He also said that the only reason he was sharing the news was to counter "false headlines" and expressed his discontent with the controversy:

"We also never planned on sharing this, but as always my hand is forced by false headlines - behind the scenes we funded wells and water projects in the state, I’ve also been working with INAH on a fund to support local Mexican archeology and new discoveries because I wanted to help spread the culture as a thanks for allowing us to film. I hope to go back someday and continue to share how awesome the culture is with the world, sad to see this get distorted."

MrBeast is known for his philanthropic efforts and frequently shares various projects his team is engaged with via his Beast Philanthropy channel on YouTube. Earlier this year, he made a video talking about how they had helped "literal child slaves" in West Africa by funding a medical facility for GMAD (Ghana Make a Difference).

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In related news, MrBeast was part of the recently released Love, Death + Robots on Netflix and made a post explaining his role in the series.