Best known as MrBeast’s sidekick, Chris Tyson has drawn quite the heat in the last couple of months. Ever since he announced starting Hormone Replacement Therapy, Chris can’t seem to catch a break. Despite MrBeast himself defending his close friend, fans and critics seemingly like giving the 26-year-old a hard time over his recent life decision.
The backfire became more than a burden Tyson could seemingly bear, with rumors of MrBeast firing him surfacing online. And Tyson’s decreasing number of appearances on Jimmy’s channel only seemed to strengthen the rumors. Later, it turned out that MrBeast never let Chris go from the crew. In fact, Tyson chose to take some time off to spend with his son Tucker.
However, another piece of news has now sort of broken the YouTube sphere, or so it appears. The North Carolina native appeared on the BANTER podcast recently. Tyson spoke on a number of hot topics, including the famed “Karl effect,” for which he even kissed his fellow MrBeast crew member Karl Jacobs. Tyson then made eyebrow-raising comments when he claimed that MrBeast knew about his gender identity all along.
Chris stated that Jimmy Donaldson, MrBeast’s real name, has been supportive of Chris the entire time. He mentioned that Jimmy found out about it in college at first.
Tyson said, “I mean, Jimmy’s known it since we were in college together. I accidentally walked out of a bedroom, like, my bedroom and his bedroom were apart, obviously not very cis-het-male. And I told him. I told him, I was like, ‘I don’t really know what it is. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be ready to like, deal with it.’”
Chris revealed that MrBeast has been supportive of his gender identity for the past 7 years pic.twitter.com/SbOd9oxazl
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) May 11, 2023
To this, as per Chris, MrBeast responded that the former should inform him whenever it becomes “a thing.” Tyson went on to never talk about it again for the next seven years. He added, “And he was like, ‘Oh yeah, you know, I don’t care. Just whenever it becomes a thing, just let me know.’ And then for like, seven years, or however many years, I just didn’t let him know.”
According to Chris, he wasn’t always certain about the term for his specific identity. But he has always been firm that being a cis male wasn’t correct for him.
Speculations claim MrBeast’s channel might be in jeopardy owing to Chris Tyson
Ever since his controversial HRT announcement, Chris Tyson hasn’t been the only one to be affected by the backlash. His close friend and highly successful YouTuber, MrBeast has been at the receiving end of some harsh criticism as well.
Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro famously took to YouTube to express his disdain toward Tyson. He’d mention that Chris was “selfish” to leave his wife and son in order to make HRT his priority. Additionally, the 39-year-old American columnist also stated that keeping Tyson around would do more harm than good to MrBeast a.k.a. Jimmy Donaldson.
Ben Shapiro went on to warn Jimmy that Chris’ recent personal life decision could lead to his channel’s downfall. He claimed that viewers may not want Tyson appearing in MrBeast’s videos following his announcement. As per Shapiro, having Tyson around would affect the “dynamic” of the show heavily, leading to a rise in dislikes for their videos.
This theory led to a huge backing behind Shapiro, especially from Tyson’s critics. However, an equal amount of Chris’ supporters came out to defend their idol on social media. The video sparked a wave of backlash and still continues to be talked about.
Today at 5:21 PM CDT, MrBeast hit 156M subscribers!
This milestone took 4 days, putting the daily average at ~+234K subscribers/day.
This milestone brings more exciting news: MrBeast is now TIED with SET India in the race to become YouTube’s 3rd most-subscribed channel!!! pic.twitter.com/UHUdXbPtLf
— MrBeast Statistics (@MrBeast_Stats) May 29, 2023
Fortunately for MrBeast, his YouTube channel seems far from affected. Recently, his main channel successfully crossed over 156 million subscribers. This makes it one of the most-subscribed channels in the platform’s history.
Along with the historic milestone, MrBeast now stands toe to toe against India’s SET India channel in its quest to become the platform’s 3rd-most subscribed channel. With stats like these, the channel is seemingly showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.