On March 1, 2026, YouTuber Rosanna Pansino called out Jimmy “MrBeast” for buying video views. With nearly 470 million subscribers, Jimmy has YouTube’s largest channel. During February 2026, he clocked over 3 billion views, and over his channel’s lifetime, he’s racked up about 113 billion in total. While this may seem an impressive feat for many, Rosanna Pansino called foul play.
Following Beast Industries CEO Jeff Housenbold’s announcement claiming that MrBeast has reached 1.45 billion unique viewers over 90 days, Pansino responded, questioning the metric’s legitimacy:
“Did MrBeasts CEO disclose how many of those views were bought? It was recently discovered that MrBeast ran his long form and short form videos as ads 428 times last year alone. His Long Form views are down about 50% from last year despite him buying views.”
A day later, she followed up and mentioned that with YouTube Promote, Jimmy could effectively buy views:
“Had the team run some tests! Apparently, if you spend $1 Million (the amount MrBeast gives away in a video) you can buy nearly 600 MILLION views using YouTube Promote. This is a screenshot of YouTubes backend where you can put how many views you want to buy for your video. Turns out it’s pretty easy to inflate views and subs when you’re a billionaire with some extra cash to spend.”
She also attached a screenshot of a YouTube backend page with a million-dollar budget filled in. This $1 million would allow engagement, leading to an estimated 590 million views.
For context, Google’s Business article on Creator Promotions states that YouTube Promote is a built-in tool that lets creators pay to show their videos or Shorts to a wider, targeted audience on YouTube, helping boost views, engagement, and potential subscribers by putting your content in front of more relevant viewers.
Rosanna Pansino speaks on YouTube Promote amidst accusations that MrBeast buys views
Adding on to her comments via user interactions on X, Rosanna Pansino said:
“With promote you pay to have your video run as a pre-roll or mid-roll ad. It has nothing to do with ‘the front page’. It’s not a banner or thumbnail ad. It automatically plays your video as an ad interruption and counts as a view.”
Essentially, using the Promote feature, Pansino suggests that Jimmy ran some of his videos as paid ads on YouTube, and that some views/subscribers were driven that way.
She responded to her original statement about Jeff Housenbold’s announcement by saying that there’s nothing inherently “wrong” with using a built-in feature on YouTube, while adding that “bragging” about view counts is:
“There is nothing wrong with buying views on YouTube (it’s a built in feature called ‘Promote’). Whats crazy is buying a bunch of views and then bragging about how many views you’re getting.”
In other news, ex-FaZe Clan member Nick “Lacy” suggested that MrBeast should’ve livestreamed his $1 million video with streamers, claiming content creators would “leak” information.
Edited by Vishnu Menon
