MrBeast is under fire for allegedly employing a registered sex offender, featuring him in some of his videos in 2018 and 2019.
Jake Franklin, a long-time MrBeast collaborator who went by the moniker “Jake the Viking,” said Delaware is his brother-in-law.
The allegations about Delaware first appeared in a video by DogPack404, a former MrBeast employee now making videos calling out the wildly popular creator for unethical practices.
Jake Weddle, another former MrBeast employee, said in a video that MrBeast employed a known registered sex offender at the company during his time there.
“I’ve heard rumors, I can’t confirm or deny anything. I don’t have any tangible evidence, but I’ve heard stuff,” Weddle said, while images flashed on the screen of a man alleged to be Delaware in a MrBeast video, as well as pictures from an entry on a sex offender registry.
MrBeast Delaware accusations
In response to online backlash, Franklin posted a lengthy message explaining the matter.
“Yes Delaware is my Brother-In-Law. Yes he is a RSO [Registered Sex Offender]. When he was 21, a 16 year old girl accused him and others of SA [Sexual Assault] when she was 11. Delaware took a Plea Deal. That’s why there was no jail time, but he still had to register,” Franklin wrote.
According to Franklin, Delaware was a “behind the scenes manager” hired by MrBeast around 2017-2018.
Franklin stopped working with MrBeast in August 2020 and said Delaware left the company earlier.
Franklin also said that he “firmly” believes his brother-in-law did nothing wrong and that he’s “a good person, an amazing husband to my sister, and the best father to my 2 nieces that I could ever ask for.”
The image shared by DogPack in his video comes from the sex offender’s registry in Delaware and shows a man convicted on Apr. 21, 2010 of Rape in the Fourth Degree for sexual intercourse with a victim less than 18 years old.
On the North Carolina sex offender registry database a person with the same name and same charges reveals the offense happened on Aug. 20, 2004, in Sussex County, Delaware. According to the registry, the victim was 11, and the perpetrator was 16 when the incident happened.
Images of the man appear to match those of the man in the MrBeast videos as well as a man Franklin posted on social media of himself with his family.
The Daily Dot is not naming Delaware as they could not independently corroborate his identity. Delaware did not pick up or respond to texts sent to a number associated with a business of his.
Delaware appeared in several of MrBeast’s videos over that period. In one, contestants including friends of MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, stayed in a padded room and straitjackets for 24 hours.
In that video, Delaware goes by “Zoro” and wears a mask, but Donaldson also calls him “Delaware” at one point.
Weddle mentioned the mask in the video.
“Why would you wear a mask, why would you conceal your face … what are you concealing, that you’re a registered sex offender? And that your face could be looked up on a thing?” Weddle asked in the DogPack video. “How much more can you literally cover up a sex offender? With a physical mask. Is it more on the nose, or?”
Is Delaware in other MrBeast videos?
However, Delaware appears in other videos without a mask.
In one video from 2018 titled “I Spent 24 Hours Straight In Prison,” Donaldson asks “Delaware” to pass him and his friends their phones so they can FaceTime their families.
Another video from the same year shows Donaldson and his friends destroying furniture and appliances in what appears to be Delaware’s house before replacing them with new furniture and appliances.
A 2018 video titled “I Put 100 Million Orbeez In My Friend’s Backyard,” also shows what appears to be Delaware’s house. At the time the video came out, it was Donaldson’s most viewed video ever.
Weddle said that while he was there, competing rumors flew around.
“When I was there, they called him Delaware,” Weddle said. “Apparently they called him Delaware because he’s not allowed to go back to Delaware.”
Franklin, in his post, denied the name had anything to do with that.
“His nickname isn’t Delaware because he can’t go back to Delaware, he’s from Delaware. That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. He’s been back several times,” Franklin wrote.
DogPack said that another ex-MrBeast employee told him that MrBeast’s team had also worked to expunge the Delaware record from the registry.
Franklin, in his post, said that “Delawares charges are set to be dropped this fall,” though he did not mention any involvement by MrBeast.
DogPack didn’t respond to inquiries asking for more follow up information or additional evidence.
Chucky Appelby, a MrBeast executive, pushed back on DogPack’s first video on X, where he said the company fired DogPack after less than a month
He did not reply to questions from the Daily Dot about the allegations Franklin made about Donaldson and Delaware’s relationship or DogPack’s claim that the MrBeast team worked to expunge the record.
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