YouTuber MrBeast accused of racism for kicking entrepreneur out of Clubhouse room

A prominent YouTuber has sparked controversy after hosting a Clubhouse room and allegedly kicking out a speaker because he couldn’t pronounce his name.

MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has been accused of racism for removing speaker Farokh Sarmad from a room on Clubhouse– a popular audio-only app that encourages users to engage in debates and discussions in ‘rooms’. YouTuber MrBeast, who has over 53 million subscribers, has been known to give out large sums on money on the app.

On this occasion, he was hosting a Clubhouse room with over 1,400 listeners. He was in charge of giving audience members speaking capabilities, provided they had a profile photo of themselves with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk.

MrBeast reportedly told Sarmad: “I can’t spell your name so let me yote you out”. This came after Sarmad had changed his profile photo in order to be able to speak but, he says, he was overlooked twice and was kicked out of the room before he was able to say anything.

Sarmad tweeted a thread about the incident, which he claims was “blatant racism”:

Sarmad’s accusations were questioned by others in the room who believe he was mistaken about the reason he was removed.

Sarmad insists he has experienced this kind of racism before and knows what it’s like. Speaking to Insider, he said: “I did this because I've suffered from this before, given that my name is Farokh. It's happened to me in Paris where I was raised. It's happened to me here in Canada as well as in the United States."

indy100 has reached out to MrBeast for comment. Regardless of these specific allegations, name-based microaggressions are completely unacceptable in any and all circumstances.