YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, revealed that he was previously invited to the Titanic submersible.
In a tweet on Sunday, Donaldson said he was invited to ride the submersible earlier this month and refused the offer.
“I was invited earlier this month to ride the titanic submarine, I said no. Kind of scary that I could have been on it,” said MrBeast in a statement on Twitter.
Titan, a deep-sea submersible carrying a crew of five individuals on an expedition to the century-old wreck of the Titanic, was discovered in fragments on Thursday following an implosion that resulted in the loss of all lives on board.
The crew included OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman and French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Since the submarine’s disappearance on Sunday, the Titan’s life support system, initially designed to endure for 96 hours, had been steadily dwindling, narrowing the time frame.
Last month, Donaldson, a popular YouTube personality, reached the milestone of 150 million subscribers. As of May 2023, Donaldson had 741 videos on his channel. The most popular videos on his channel had 413 million, 290 million, 263 million, and 251 million views.
Donaldson ranked fifth in terms of subscribers on YouTube and his account is the second most popular U.S. channel.
Rush faced criticisms over the years as the Titan did not have any sort of inspection or certification to go into operation.
OceanGate fired its whistleblower, who was the director of marine operation, according to court documents in 2018 lawsuit.
MrBeast isn’t the only one who had rejected the offer to be a part of the OceanGate expedition to the Titanic.
Digital marketing executive, Chris Brown, refused the offer to be on the Titan since he felt that Rush’s company were cutting too many corners.
Brown discovered the Titan was constructed with old scaffolding poles and the ship was to be steered with a $30 battery powered gaming controller.
Investor Jay Bloom and his son Sean gave their seats on the Titan before the disaster as they felt they would not have felt safe on the vessel.
Produced in association with Benzinga
Edited by Alberto Arellano and Jessi Rexroad Shull