MrBeast has weighed in on Saturday Night Live’s “Beauty and Mr. Beast,” the weekend sketch that folded the YouTuber’s outsized giveaway persona into a fairytale sendup headlined by host Nikki Glaser. Asked about seeing himself parodied on network TV, Jimmy Donaldson said he didn’t know it was coming and that “the second it aired, my phone blew up,” adding that he thought the bit was funny. The sketch, posted by the show online, features Glaser’s Belle meeting a Beast recast as a high-stakes challenge host who dangles extravagant prizes and stunt rules for the townsfolk.
The segment lands at a moment when Donaldson’s crossover presence is growing beyond YouTube. His large-scale competition series and brand partnerships have made him a fixture in mainstream entertainment coverage, and SNL’s treatment leaned into those tropes: prize money as plot device, viral pacing as punchline, and a straight-faced host persona played by cast member Ben Marshall. The show’s official highlight page promoted the sketch alongside Glaser’s monologue and musical guest Sombr’s performances, amplifying social media circulation through the program’s accounts and fan reposts.
Online reaction to the parody was swift. Entertainment sites aggregated Donaldson’s lighthearted response while circulating clips from the broadcast, and discussion threads weighed in on how closely the bit mirrored the cadence of his videos. A smaller thread of debate surfaced as some viewers compared the premise to a recent “Beauty and MrBeast” piece from Studio C, a long-running sketch outfit, arguing that the ideas arrived within days of each other; others dismissed the charge as a case of parallel parody around a widely recognizable figure.
As with other pop-culture targets that make it to Studio 8H, the life cycle moved quickly: premiere, clip, meme, response. In this case, the subject’s response helped cap the moment. Donaldson’s note that he was blindsided but amused signaled no appetite for a protracted flap, even as the sketch continued to rack up views on NBC’s platforms and across reposts.
