MrBeast is trying to get in contact with an 8-year-old fan after he was pranked by two YouTubers who led him and his father to believe they were appearing in one of MrBeast’s videos.


YouTuber Calvelli, who has a small channel with just over 3,500 subscribers, took to a Connecticut Target earlier this month and convinced shoppers to participate in a challenge where they would be blindfolded and have to fill up a shopping cart; whatever they managed to add to the cart would be paid for by Calvelli, who told participants he was working with MrBeast.




Two of the participants were 8-year-old Gabe Lyles and his dad TJ, who put on the blindfolds and began filling the cart, only to hear the YouTuber running away. Gabe, a huge fan of MrBeast’s, told local news station WFSB that his heart broke because he thought his dreams were coming true. To add insult to injury, the Calvelli’s crew allegedly told Gabe that they had chosen him to participate in the challenge because of his hearing loss — earlier this year, MrBeast financed the hearing aids of 1,000 people in a video that took the internet by storm, so there was no reason for Gabe to think Calvelli was lying.



After a video of the news report was shared to Twitter, MrBeast was quick to respond, writing, “Give me his info!!!” Fortunately, several people gave him TJ’s information, though there hasn’t been any word yet about what he’s done with it. According to Insider, the Commission for Persons with Disabilities in Gabe’s hometown gave him a $200 Target gift card which the store then matched, allowing him to go on the shopping spree he was denied by Calvelli.


For his part, Calvelli took to YouTube to argue that he didn’t know Gabe was hard of hearing, and claims that TJ lied to the local news to make Calvelli look worse; he also claims he never told the father/son pair that he worked with MrBeast.


Commenters were divided — some called the prank harmless; others asked Calvelli to upload the unedited footage in order to prove his innocence. By and large, the majority of commenters agreed that pranking a child the way Calvelli did was harsh, with one commenter concluding, “Disability or not, kids aren’t able to understand the entirety of a ‘joke’,” while another said of Calvelli’s attempted defense, “Bro really said, ‘He made us look like super bad guys, we are just bad guys.’”


Pretty much.