Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donalson says he’d have paid Alex Honnold more to do his free climb of Taipei 101 over on YouTube.
On January 24, climber Alex Honnold summited to the top of the 17,000-foot Taipei 101 building by himself on a free climb. The solo climb, which was scheduled for January 23, was broadcast live on Netflix, with millions around the globe tuning in to see the incredible feat.
In the aftermath of the climb, Honnold said that he would have done the climb “for free,” but got an “embarrassingly small” payment when compared to other live sporting events on Netflix.
“Actually, if you put it in the context of mainstream sports, it’s an embarrassingly small amount. You know, Major League Baseball players get like $170 million contracts. Like, someone you haven’t even heard of and that nobody cares about,” he told the New York Times.
MrBeast responds to reports of $500k pay for Alex Honnold’s climb
There have been reports online that Honnold was paid around $500,000 for the climb. “I’m not getting paid to climb the building. I’m getting paid for the spectacle. I’m climbing the building for free,” he added.
If the climber was to attempt it over on YouTube, however, MrBeast would have been prepared to offer up a bigger lump sum.
“I would have paid him more to do it on my channel lol,” he said, replying to one post about the reported payday.
Some fans quickly responded to that, urging him to back Honnold’s next climb. “Well Jimmy, that is the 11th tallest building in the world. There are 10 others he can still climb. Just saying,” one commented.
“Let’s go. Get him another skyscraper,” added another.
As Honnold noted, getting permission to climb the building was one of the biggest hurdles. However, MrBeast has proven that he can get access like that for himself.
The YouTuber was able to get 100 hours at the Pyramids of Giza after negotiating with the Egyptian government, and wanted to film with Joe Rogan while he was there.
