Beast Industries, the $5 billion media conglomerate founded by YouTube star MrBeast, is being sued by a former employee who says she was sexually harassed, discriminated against as a woman, and fired shortly after returning from maternity leave. 

The company refutes her claims, saying it has evidence, including Slack and WhatsApp messages, company documents, and witness testimony, that contradict the lawsuit’s allegations.

The federal lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina, paints a picture of Beast Industries as a boy’s club in which women were excluded from male-dominated meetings, demeaned in front of colleagues, and told to “shut up,” while men were allowed “to be childish.”

“This clout-chasing complaint is built on deliberate misrepresentations and categorically false statements, and we have the receipts to prove it,” a spokeswoman for Beast Industries says in a statement shared with Fast Company. “We will not submit to opportunistic lawyers looking to manufacture a payday from us.”

The former employee, Lorrayne Mavromatis, was hired in 2022 and terminated in 2025, less than three weeks after returning from maternity leave, per the lawsuit. Before that, the suit alleges, she had been demoted for complaining about sexual harassment and the hostile work environment—for both her and other women. The company denies she was demoted.

According to the lawsuit, the company distributed a document titled “How to Succeed In MrBeast Production,” which included statements such as “It’s okay for the boys to be childish” and “No Does Not Mean No.” It also told employees “The amount of hours you work is irrelevant.”

The company says that document is not an employee handbook, but a production guidebook; it was previously leaked in 2024. 

Mavromatis says she was sexually harassed by her supervisors, including being made to meet CEO James Warren at his home while he commented on her clothing. 

Mavromatis was also left out of projects because, per the lawsuit, Warren told her she was “too beautiful” and that her “appearance had a certain sexual effect on Jimmy,” referring to Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast. 

“Jimmy gets really awkward around beautiful women,” Warren told her, according to the lawsuit. “Let’s just say that when you’re around and he goes to the restroom, he’s not actually using the restroom.”

The comapny spokeswoman called this allegation “ridiculous,” saying that it is an exploitation of Donaldson’s medical conditions, including Crohn’s disease and an eye condition.

It wasn’t only female employees who were subject to degradation, the suit alleges. Male executives also made jokes about female contestants of the MrBeast and Amazon MGM Studios game show BeastGames when they “complained they did not have access to feminine hygiene products and clean underwear while participating in the show,” per the filing. The company did not comment on the record about this allegation. 

In 2024, BeastGames contestants of BeastGames raised issues with the production, saying that they hadn’t received adequate food or medical care, and that contestants faced injuries, with some leaving the competition area via stretchers.

Mavromatis’s suit also claims that her experience working with MrBeast included discrimination over her pregnancy, the lawsuit claims. She says when she told her manager she would need maternity leave, in “early 2025,” she was never informed about her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). A digital copy of an employee handbook was shared with Fast Company by Beast Industries that includes mention of parental leave and FMLA, and which says the document was last updated in March 2025. 

She was also asked to work while on that leave, per the lawsuit, including joining a conference call while in the delivery room, and felt she had to join or face retaliation. Under FMLA, it’s illegal for a company to force or coerce an employee to work while on such leave. Beast Industries says there was no such expectation, sharing screenshots of messages that the company says show Mavromatis being told not to join that call while in labor, and asking to work while on maternity leave; Fast Company could not immediately verify the messages.

Less than three weeks after returning to work from that leave, the lawsuit says, she was fired. The company spokeswoman says this was not performance related, but part of a broader restructuring.

MrBeast’s YouTube page has 479 million subscribers, making it the channel on the video platform with the most subecribers.. Beast Industries also runs businesses including snack brand Feastables, lunch kit company Lunchly, fintech app Step, Beast Philanthropy, and more. The company has more than 500 employees.