YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, better known by his online pseudonym “Mr. Beast,” revealed Sunday that he was offered a spot on the doomed Titan submersible.
“I was invited earlier this month to ride the titanic submarine, I said no. Kind of scary that I could have been on it,” Donaldson said on Twitter.
Attached to the tweet was a screenshot of a text message inviting him to a voyage down to the Titanic. Donaldson, however, did not provide additional details, such as who sent the message. But the person made it clear they were going on the trip.
The message read, “Also, I’m going to the Titanic in a submarine late this month. The team would be stoked to have you along. I’m sure you’re also welcome to join.”
Donaldson is the second person to come forward claiming they were invited to OceanGate’s third-annual voyage to the Titanic wreckage.
Before the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the Titan submersible had imploded, Las Vegas businessman Jay Bloom revealed that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who died in the catastrophic accident, invited Bloom and his son on the voyage several months ago.
“So this is crazy … I got invited to go on this dive. If I accepted, I would’ve been one of the five onboard right now,” Bloom wrote on Facebook last Tuesday. “Stockton Rush has been trying to get me to go for a year now. I last saw him at Luxor when we went through the Titanic Exhibition together. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago and he told me they had an opening on this dive.”
In a subsequent Facebook post, Bloom explained that Rush invited him on the trip, which was scheduled to take place in May. But it was pushed back until June 18 because of weather. Rush even offered Bloom and his son seats at a discounted rate.
Shockingly, Bloom expressed concerns about Titan’s safety — which Rush outright denied.
“While there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving,” Rush told Bloom months ago. “There hasn’t been even an injury in 35 years in a non-military subs.”
Eventually, Bloom told Rush that scheduling conflicts prevented him from going on the voyage. Bloom’s seats went to Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.
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