“Beast Games” Season 2 came to an epic conclusion on Wednesday, with MrBeast crowning U.S. Air Force pilot Tyler Lucas as his second multi-million-dollar grand prize winner on Prime Video — at $5,105,000, to be exact.
As viewers saw, original winner Jeff Randall Allen returned to the competition alongside nine other Season 1 fan-favorites this time around, and he was able to offer some key monetary advice to Tyler regarding his overnight wealth.
“I’ve been picking his brain, he’s been giving me the rundown of the dos and don’ts and he’s just providing so much advice that’s lifted a lot of stress off my shoulders, because coming into this newfound wealth, you’re concerned about how to properly and strategically invest your money to continue to have it grow and set your family up for life,” Tyler told TheWrap. “Ultimately, that’s my goal. That’s why I competed to do this. So just hearing what he has to say, the advice he provided, it really helps put me in a good mindset of what I should do with the money and the people I should talk to that are professionals that can help accomplish my goals.”
While Jeff may have doubled his winnings to $10 million in the Season 1 finale, Tyler is still more than happy to be able to call himself a millionaire.
“It doesn’t feel real yet. I saw the episode this morning, but it’s still very surreal,” he shared. “I’ve been constantly asking myself, ‘Why me? Why did I deserve this when there’s so many other good people out there?’ So I really don’t know when it will sink in, maybe it might take a couple more days, but it’s just mind-blowing that this actually happened and I actually did it.”
For Strong vs. Smart, the show started with 200 contestants — down from the 2,000 who participated in Season 1 — but once the competition got down to the Top 10, the idea of winning finally became real.
“The first couple challenges, it’s really based on your connections and your bonds with other people, depending on what teams you were with. So there were a couple instances where, at the beginning stage, I was conflicted on who I should go with and who I shouldn’t,” Tyler explained. “Once we kind of got past that aspect and got to the Top 10, that’s when I was like, ‘Man, I might have a legit chance, I have a 10% chance right now.’ That’s when it really hit, especially after [the family visit], because that was just the extra motivation I needed to keep pushing through.”
“The hardest part was just the social aspect, the relationships that you make with everyone, because you begin to become emotionally invested in them, getting to know them on a personal level, that it becomes very hard to make strategic moves or to eliminate people,” he continued. “Everyone there was such a good person and everyone was deserving to win, so having to make those tough decisions to eliminate certain people and your friends, it was very hard to dissociate the gameplay from emotions. So that was definitely something that was very tough that a lot of us struggled with.”
Plus, on a cast with so many “Survivor” and “American Ninja Warrior” veterans, Tyler was lucky his competitors didn’t recognize him as a finalist from Season 1 of NBC’s similarly titled “Titan Games.”
“Not many people really knew about that. I think from some people’s perspective, they were not really looking at me as too much a competitor because they didn’t really know too much about me,” Tyler said. “A lot of people didn’t know that I was on ‘Titan Games’ and made it to the finale in a very physically demanding competition. And I played college football at Penn State, so it was nice that that was kind of under the radar, because maybe I could have been seen as more of a threat.”
In the end, the former collegiate athlete and current active-duty service member was also impressed my MrBeast as a host and producer — and not only because he gave him so much money.
“I have watched his videos for the last five years or so. How can you not like him? He does so much good work. He’s worth a lot of money, but he uses that money to pay it forward with all the charitable work he does around the world, changing people’s lives. You don’t see a lot of people do that, so to see him use his money to help other people out, it’s just so humbling,” Tyler shared. “He was constantly on the go doing something. You can tell he’s very passionate about what he does, how everything is produced. He’s very particular and he really cares about everyone’s experience. He definitely made the time to talk to each contestant, make sure they’re doing well, got everything they need, and just to ask for advice of what could be better or what they didn’t like. He genuinely cares about what he’s doing and the people involved.”
So will we be seeing him again on our television screens in the future?
“If the opportunity presents itself, I’d love to come back. I had such a blast, it was such a fun competition and I owe a lot to the Beast team. They’ve changed my life. So whatever I could do to pay it forward, to help them out, I’m willing to do that,” Tyler concluded. “I’m an athlete, I love to compete, so if there’s a chance to compete, then I would love to have that opportunity.”
Get ready for more: “Beast Games” has already been renewed for Season 3.
