Ava Kris Tyson, a close friend and longtime collaborator of Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast, has decided to step down from the highly-produced YouTube channel amid allegations that she groomed a minor. The alleged victim, who says she is now 20, has denied the allegations.
“I would like to apologize for any past behavior or comments if they have hurt or offended anyone. It was not my intention,” Tyson wrote on Twitter. “After seeing recent events, we have mutually decided that it is best for me to permanently step away from all things MrBeast and social media to focus on my family and mental health.”
After revealing last year that she was receiving hormone therapy to confirm her gender and changing her pronouns on Twitter, Tyson was subjected to a wave of transphobic attacks online. Despite both her ex-wife Katie, with whom she has a son, and Donaldson defending Tyson against bullying and harassment, the backlash has continued to mount.
On June 13, the Prism42 account posted a 45-minute video online accusing Tyson of exploiting a minor and presenting alleged evidence of inappropriate interactions between Tyson and the now-20-year-old Lava. In the video, Prism42 claims that Tyson was 20 and Lava was 13 at the time their online communications began. Among the accusations, Prism42 points to an alleged Snapchat message Tyson sent to Lava’s face that read “Cumming for America.”
On Monday, in a series of posts on X, Lava denied the allegations. In a repost of a conversation YouTuber Kim had, Lava was quoted as saying, “I was not harassed by Chris Tyson,” and “I didn’t meet Chris Tyson myself, I met Chris and the MrBeast crew with my family present.” In the post, Lava also stated, “I made a Discord with Chris Tyson when I was 13 and inappropriate jokes were told, that’s all.”
In another post, Lava asked followers to “help me stand up to all these lies,” adding, “Chris literally did nothing wrong.” Lava also addressed other videos that captured the claims made by Prism42, calling them “blatant lies and distortions of the truth.”
“I have never been exploited or abused. Can you help me and comment on these videos and ask them to stop spreading lies?” Lava wrote. “This situation deprives children of their rights that are actively exploited daily online. I am not a victim of anything that is claimed in these videos or at all.”
Hours after announcing her departure from MrBeast, Tyson followed up the post with a series of blog posts: “The combination of these two factors to create a narrative that my behavior extended beyond bad jokes is disgusting and did not happen. In the past few years, I have learned that my old sense of humor is unacceptable. I cannot change who I was, but I can continue to work on myself.”
“I want to add that I have never harassed anyone. The person named in these allegations, @LavaGS, has explicitly stated that they are false,” Tyson wrote.
In June, Donaldson defended Tyson after streamer Nickmercs posted on X that Tyson “should be ashamed.” Donaldson also responded to criticism in April 2023 that Tyson's transition would cause MrBeast's channel to lose fans. In response, Donaldson wrote, “This is getting ridiculous. Chris is not my 'nightmare' he's my f**king friend and everything is fine. All this transphobia is starting to piss me off.”
