Who Is Thea Booysen? MrBeast Announces Engagement

MrBeast is about to have a Mrs! The popular YouTuber has announced that he is engaged to his girlfriend, Thea Booysen.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, on January 1, MrBeast shared a photo of himself getting down on bended knee before smiling family members.

Captioning the post, which also featured a close-up shot of Booysen’s dazzling diamond ring, MrBeast, 26, wrote: “So I kinda did a thing..”

Newsweek has contacted a representative of MrBeast via email for comment.

As of press time, the post has garnered more than 29 million views.

For her part, Booysen, 27, posted a photo of the newly engaged couple hugging, adding the caption: “Happy New Year indeed.”

Speaking about the engagement to People, Booysen said that her family was in on the romantic surprise.

“My family flew out from South Africa for Christmas and we were going to do Christmas in our house so both families were here,” she said. “We were opening presents, and then for the very last present he asked me to close my eyes because it was a surprise.”

Explaining how he went about pulling off his proposal, MrBeast said: “I intentionally dropped a large box to make noise before presenting the real gift—with the ring inside—to her. And then I went down on a knee and proposed.”

An “extremely excited” Booysen “of course said yes” once she realized what was going on.

Like her new fiancé, South African-born Booysen is also an online content creator. As an online gamer, she streams under the name TheaBeasty on Twitch, where she has almost 30,000 followers. Her YouTube channel of the same name has almost 40,000 followers.

Booysen, who began her gaming career in 2016, is also the co-owner of esports organization Nixuh.

She graduated from South Africa’s Stellenbosch University in 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in law and an honors degree in psychology. She continued her education at Scotland’s University of Edinburgh, from which she graduated with a master’s degree in neuropsychology in November 2024.

“She has a genuine love of learning, and that’s something that I have,” MrBeast said of his partner during an appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast in 2023. “I’m always learning and improving [with her].”

Adding to her accomplishments, Booysen published her first young adult novel, The Marked Children, in 2022. She started working on the book while still in high school, and continued work on it throughout her undergraduate studies.

Who Is MrBeast?

After launching his online career in 2012, MrBeast holds the record for the most subscribers on YouTube, which as of press time exceeds 340 million. His fans have tuned in to watch everything from big-budget, elaborate stunts to charitable acts, such as giving away cash, houses, and cars, and even paying for people’s medical procedures.

The social media star has now ventured into TV with the launch of his Prime Video show Beast Games, which offers a grand prize of over $5 million and a private island.

MrBeast even dished out $100 million of his own cash to invest in the project. The show is inspired by Netflix‘s Korean hit Squid Game, a survival thriller series in which cash-strapped characters fight for their lives as they compete for a gargantuan cash prize.

Beast Games, which debuted in December 2024, premiered in the top position in the U.S. and a number of other countries.

Acknowledging the achievement, MrBeast wrote on X last month: “I cannot express how grateful I am for all of the love and support! I, and countless talented people really put so much love and passion into it, and seeing everyone’s reactions has been amazing!”

Greg Selkoe, who previously served as president of esports and entertainment organization FaZe Clan, recently told Newsweek that MrBeast’s popularity has continued to grow because he’s an “earnest, sincere, and authentic guy who wants to do the right thing and wants to learn and improve.”

What is MrBeast’s Real Name and How Much Is He Worth?

While he has risen to fame under the name MrBeast, the social media personality’s real name is the far less menacing Jimmy Donaldson.

In January 2022, Forbes ranked him as the highest-earning content creator, with an estimated annual income of $54 million, drawn mostly from ads on his videos.

With the success of Beast Games and his sustained growth in popularity, MrBeast’s net worth is now predicted to be significantly higher than previous estimates.

Thea Booysen and MrBeast Relationship Timeline

MrBeast met Booysen while visiting her native South Africa back in 2022.

“Jimmy was coming down to South Africa with Logan Paul and Casey Neistat and they had a video they wanted to film in Antarctica,” she said on the Wide Awake Podcast in October 2022. “Everybody got COVID so they had to cancel the video and stay in South Africa a little bit longer.”

Booysen further explained that during his unplanned downtime in the country, MrBeast dined with one of her friends who asked her to pay a visit. Booysen said that she was “curious” about MrBeast, and on meeting him, the sparks flew as they discussed a broad range of subjects.

“The fact that he could keep up with the conversation to me was very attractive because you have to have a certain amount of interest and intellect,” she said.

After their initial meeting the two kept in touch, and MrBeast flew back to South Africa for one day just to see Booysen again.

“He was adamant he wanted to come visit again and I was keen—I wanted to get to know him better,” she shared on the Wide Awake Podcast.

The social media stars made their public debut as a couple in April 2022 at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in Los Angeles.

After maintaining a long-distance relationship, Booysen told MyBroadband in 2024 that they had moved in together—although her current tourist visa means that she has been splitting her time between the U.S. and South Africa.

What We Know About the Wedding So Far

Despite his his fame, MrBeast has largely kept his romantic life out of the spotlight. In his post-engagement interview with People, he said that he would also like a low-key wedding.

“This will definitely be more family and friends—definitely more private,” he said of his upcoming nuptials. “I don’t take much vacation because of how hard I work, so I definitely want to make sure that the wedding will be a time to celebrate with her and spend time with friends and family who we really enjoy being with.”

“It will be the ultimate way to take some time away and enjoy things,” he added.

However, Booysen did tell People that they are considering tying the knot in a particular setting.

“We’re thinking of doing it somewhere on an island where we’re far away from just about everybody,” she said. “We’re not going to try and have a big, extravagant wedding. It’s going to be nice, but it’s certainly going to be intimate [with] close family and friends.”

Whatever the plan, Booysen added that they have a stellar support system to help pull off their dream day.

“We have the best team, I want to say in the world, who can quickly plan a wedding if we need to,” she said.