Squid Game: The Challenge player reveals truth about prize fund
While Squid Game: The Challenge has reached its conclusion, new details continue to emerge off-screen – and now a fan favorite player has revealed the truth about the $4.56 million prize fund.
Squid Game: The ChallengeisNetflix’sbiggest reality TV show to date – quite literally, as it started off with 456 players and offered up aneye-watering $4.56 million to one lucky winner.
The series is such a success, Netflix is now being inundated withapplications for Season 2– if you think you could be in with a chance, you may find out how to applyhere.
One of the many stories to have emerged over the past week is thatSeason 1 winner Mai Whelanhasn’t “seen a cent” of the prize money – but there’s more to this story than meets the eye.
Following the nail-biting finale last Wednesday, it was revealed that Mai (Player 287) is yet to receive the cash, despite filming wrapping up in February – however,fan fave Bee (Player 018)says this statement is misleading.
Taking to X, shewrote: “To clarify here. We all knew that the prize wouldn’t come until a certain number of days after filming. Press have twisted Mai’s honest answer into a non-story. It’s expected but lame to see these headlines.”
Mai’s comments came up in a post-win interview withThe Times, which states that she “hasn’t seen a cent” of the money from Netflix. “I feel like Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. Show me the money!” she said.
But as highlighted by Bee, this is pretty normal for a show of this kind. In response to her post, one X userwrote, “It also doesn’t help that most times the prizes aren’t given till after the final episode airs. So this is not a big surprise. I hope she gets it soon.”
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Beereplied: “She totally will – this isn’t some weird backyard production but the media will do anything to make a negative headline about the show.”
“Wait until they find out that Americans get taxed on prize money, so around 2 million of that she will never see,”saidanother, to which Beereplied: “This is the true scandal.”
They’re not wrong – since Mai is a US citizen, the funds will likely be subject to a 37% tax charge, which wouldn’t have been the case if she was from the UK. You can read more about that here.
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