The Untold Truth Of L.A. Beast
Los Angeles is known for plenty of things. Hollywood. Celebrity sightings. A dope sushi scene. And, of course, its Beast. No, we're not talking about the massive primate from Mighty Joe Young who thunders down Hollywood Boulevard (for those old enough to even remember that movie). The City of Angels is home to competitive eater L.A. Beast, and he's a stomach-stuffing force to be reckoned with.
Born Kevin Thomas Strahle, the guy has a YouTube channel where he absolutely dominates insane food challenges while also putting himself through quite a bit of pain and discomfort for the enjoyment of his followers and fans. But, when you bravely step foot inside the gluttonous thunderdome of competitive eating, you really can't expect any other outcome. The L.A. Beast's imposing physical stature and his gimme-everything-you-got attitude make for a man who knows how to push his body to the limits while also creating an endearing demeanor that constantly draws in new fans.
Mr. Strahle isn't just a guy who puts on a show for the sake of testing his stomach's limits, though. This is the untold truth of the L.A. Beast.
L.A. Beast doesn't always engage in eating challenges
If you peruse L.A. Beast's YouTube channel, you'll see our man eating and drinking absurdly obscure products and mind-boggling quantities of food befit for Godzilla. That's what most people know him for. However, if you look closely at the video titles, you will see some that have nothing to do with food at all. But, that doesn't mean he puts his body through any less stress in them.
In one video, L.A. Beast journeys into the Amazon jungle to visit the Satere Mawe tribe and engage in their brutal ritual where the tribal boys become men. It involves wearing two woven gloves filled with bullet ants — the species of ant whose sting feels like a bullet hit you — and dancing to ceremonial songs with tribal elders. Dressed in indigenous garb, L.A. Beast slips on the gloves and begins to dance. He's in agony immediately and begins profusely sweating. When it finally ends after several minutes, he thinks he's going into shock and gets carted off to the local hospital for assistance. He survives, of course, but he goes through absolute hell.
In another video much less extreme, he wears "drunk goggles" and hilariously attempts to make his way through a ridiculous obstacle course that results in, as you can expect, disaster. This time, however, the pain and discomfort are lighthearted and fun.
L.A. Beast took his voracious appetite antics to a live comedy show
It's easy to crank out videos in the comfort of a living room where there's no live audience to impress and editing software is at your disposal. That's why things got really interesting for L.A. Beast when he was offered a spot at The Comedy Palace, a venue in San Diego known for stand-up comedy. He took his voracious act to the stage to perform in front of an invigorated crowd ready to see the action up close and personal.
Fans of the YouTuber fill the house as L.A. Beast walks onstage with his soon-to-be-devoured meal: raw shelled eggs, a stick of butter, whole hotdogs, a bottle of syrup, a can of dog food, a raw bull testicle, two habanero peppers, blue milk (no clue why it's blue), and a small cactus. Try to read that list again without cringing. His fans arrived for a show, though, and he was ready to go full Beastmode.
The mixture of different textures and unsettling flavors definitely throws him for a loop. Some of them go down smooth, like the syrup and eggs, but others, like the whole hot dogs and raw testicles, send him into several gagging frenzies. The crowd never stops cheering him on, and after he wraps things up with the cactus, he leaves the stage a champion. That wincing look on his face, however, obviously tells you he's happy it's over.
L.A. Beast is more daring than most when it comes to spicy food
Competitive eating challenges have no time for those who are selective about what they pack their bellies to the brim with. That's why L.A. Beast hangs with the best of them. When you step foot on his culinary gridiron, there's no opponent you shy away from, and that includes food so spicy even Lucifer would cower in fear. L.A. Beast welcomes those intestinal conflagrations no matter what price he — or, his toilet — pays.
Ever heard of the Carolina Reaper? It's one of the hottest peppers on the planet, but since L.A. Beast's eating prowess is out of this world, he goes all in during a Carolina reaper eating competition at an outdoor festival in New Jersey. He eats 14 of them in under one minute. Picture a stomach full of molten lava and a mouth that feels like you sucked on a red-hot furnace. That about sums up what he felt like afterward.
In another act of sheer insanity, he attempts two packs of the world's hottest ramen combined with a dollop of the world's spiciest hot sauce, Mad Dog 357 No. 9 Plutonium, which clocks in at nine million Scoville units. The pain in his face is tangible and the deluge of forehead sweat is visible. But then again, if it wasn't, he wouldn't carry the L.A. Beast name proudly.
L.A. Beast helped break the "Chicago Cubs Curse"
Have you ever heard of someone lifting a curse by eating a massive quantity of food? Well, then you don't know anything about the Chicago Cubs' "Curse of the Billy Goat." Luckily, L.A. Beast was all too familiar, and he took his stomach-packing skills to the Windy City in an attempt to eat his way through the hex that's kept the MLB team out of the World Series since 1908 (supposedly).
The Beast, along with four other overzealous eaters (including famed competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi), head to Taco in a Bag, the restaurant where they attempt to take down a 40-pound goat. As for the part of the animal that the Beast is assigned to tackle... that would be the eyes, brain, tongue, testicles, and pancreas, of course! Did you really expect it any other way?
A crowd gathers, camera phones are set to record, and the excitement in the room is more than palpable — there's a broken curse at stake here, people! Once the event's emcee shouts "Go" the appetites are off to the races. Straight savagery is what all five men bring to the table (literally), and even though some iffy looks swim across their faces throughout, glistening smiles reign supreme at the end when all 40 pounds of livestock are off the table and in their bellies. The curse was finally broken. Now get these men some free season tickets.
Not every challenge L.A. Beast attempts ends in victory
Even though L.A.Beast seems like he can plow through anything presented to him, he's only human (well, sort of). Sometimes viewers want to see the indestructible show a vulnerable side, and even though the semi-truck of a man looks as though he's impervious to failure, he lets us in on his shortcomings, as well.
Let's look at his attempt to down 96 shots of eggnog. In a Christmas video special, the Beast arranges a massive tray of plastic shot glasses teeming with that thick sweet drink that rolls around every December. As with any challenge, he starts out fiercely tossing the shots back like they're water. But, at about the halfway point, his stomach realizes it's in over its head. Our Beast not only quits, but he festively pukes all over the miniature Christmas tree next to him. Now that's how you celebrate a holiday!
Another big loss came when he tried to chow down on the largest sushi roll ever created. You might think, "Hmm, sushi. That's relatively light on the stomach." Yea, maybe when you order from your local sushi spot. This guy, however, plops a 15-pound roll consisting of multiple types of fish onto a plate with hopes of stretching his gut to the max. He gets almost halfway through before the bad idea hits him like a cement truck. The lesson? Maybe it's best not to eat sushi by the pound.
One of L.A. Beast's challenges could have resulted in serious injury
A human digestive system isn't built to withstand a tsunami of saturated fat, sugar, and salt attacking it in droves. Clearly, L.A. Beast has a cast-iron digestive tract by now, but one challenge he takes on is a whole different animal. One with the ability to draw blood.
The Beast dares to consume several full cacti complete with the spines attached. Wait, how could a human throat handle hundreds of prickly bits tumbling down its walls? Well, L.A. Beast wants to find out, so he buys ten potted cacti and puts his esophageal concerns on hold. But, before he tackles the plants, he eats four dry ghost peppers. Because, why not mix crazy with crazier?
The Beast literally rips into the first cactus as if he's eating a steak. The spikes don't even seem to phase him, as he just chews each mouthful up and gulps it quickly down before chomping off another massive chunk. How he actually polishes all ten off without serious injury is a mystery we'll never know the answer to.
L.A. Beast holds multiple Guinness World Records
The people at Guinness World Records are always searching for new creative and ambitious achievements. Well, you better believe L.A. Beast was worthy enough to land himself in Guinness' pantheon of talent that includes the world's longest fingernails and the world's biggest pizza (any mother would be so proud). Started from the bottom now he's here (thank you, Drake).
He holds four records, to be exact, and he achieved them all over a Facebook Livestream so people could watch him crush the eating game in real-time and witness history made. The first two he knocked out were the "most chicken nuggets and ghost peppers eaten in three minutes." Yikes. When the flurry of devouring was finally over, the Beast finished a total of 642 grams of nuggets (101 grams more than the previous record) and 121 grams (56 more than the previous record) of ghost peppers.
Then, just a couple weeks later, he returned to Facebook to Livestream another two records: "most powdered doughnuts eaten in three minutes" and "fastest time to chug a bottle of maple syrup." He grabbed the box of doughnuts, cranked the overdrive lever on his sweet tooth, and devoured nine of them, crushing the previous record of six. He wasn't allowed to drink anything during the challenge, so afterward he washed it all down with a bottle of maple syrup he chugged in just under 11 seconds, besting the previous record-holder by 15 seconds. Ahh, sweet victory.
YouTube restricted one of L.A. Beast's videos due to another popular YouTuber
YouTube, like any website that allows the public to upload videos and post written material, does its best to patrol their landscape and age-restrict — or, in extreme cases, completely ban overly-inappropriate material. L.A. Beast found himself in hot water at one point over a video he had posted seven years earlier suddenly resurfaced in a bizarre way.
Before the Beast amassed the online following he has today, he posted a video where he chugged a decades-old bottle of the forgotten 90s soda Crystal Pepsi. The video unfolds just like all his other ones. He chats with the camera as he drinks it, and promptly after he's finished it comes back up the way it went down. No big deal, right? That's happened dozens of times on his channel. However, when YouTube star PewDiePie referenced that specific video in one of his own videos, YouTube took notice and didn't like what they saw.
They sent L.A. Beast a message stating the content of the video wasn't suitable for all ages and slammed an age restriction on it, which demonetizes the whole thing. Of course, there wasn't much he could do about it, but he expressed his frustration about the ever-growing inconsistencies regarding some of the site's policies.
L.A. Beast was responsible for a massive campaign to bring back Crystal Pepsi
As consumers of all things trendy and desirable, we know products come and go. If an idea can't entice the masses quickly, it's kicked to the curb so the next great thing can try its luck. Crystal Pepsi was exactly that. Who wouldn't want to drink clear Pepsi? Well, it turned out most people didn't. That was until L.A. Beast came around.
He knew if he wanted to achieve something as epic as bringing a deceased product back from its grave, he needed social media. He started a trending #BringBackCrystalPepsi hashtag on Twitter, filmed YouTube videos, and even physically ventured out to get signatures on a petition he drew up. He was serious about this, and so were his fans. Amazingly, it eventually caught the attention of Pepsi.
The corporation sent L.A. Beast a letter thanking him for getting people so stoked in the product again. Although the message didn't give a clear answer about relaunching the soda, it did say, "We definitely hear you and your followers and we think you'll all be happy with what's in store." If curious fans want to hop aboard the Crystal bandwagon in hopes it gives the decision the push it needs, they can join the Facebook page.
L.A. Beast was a guest on Tom Green's web show
Tom Green was one of the founders of the I'm-gonna-do-crazy-stuff-in-public-and-film-it era. His MTV show, The Tom Green Show, was candid and ridiculous, but after the show ended, he fizzled off our radar. Years later, he actually hosted a low-budget talk show called Tom Green's House Tonight, and it just so happens L.A. Beast was given the chance to take the guest couch on an episode.
Naturally, the Beast is there to dazzle the cameras and crowd with his appetite. On the menu are raw shelled eggs, full hot dogs, an egg so rotten it's jet black, a raw cactus with the spines standing tall, and a raw bull's testicle. Tom Green watches in horror as the goliath conquers each dish. The crowd is as fascinated as they are disturbed by his ability to tear into a raw testicle like it's a honey barbecue wing from Buffalo Wild Wings. Not one to disappoint, our man chokes everything down without too much trouble... though the rotten egg was pretty rough.
It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder if something like this makes Tom Green regret getting back into television.
L.A. Beast might seem crazy, but he has a good heart
It takes a certain kind of mentality to willingly put oneself in harm's way just because it offers a temporary thrill. Frankly, the people who attempt the kinds of challenges L.A. Beast does more than likely have a couple of screws loose. But, in no way does that mean they aren't great people with big hearts who want to bring joy to fans. Sometimes it's those who perform the wildest antics who have the biggest sense of empathy. The Beast is certainly one of those guys, and he proved it on video.
Remember the ice bucket challenge that took over the Internet in 2014? Thousands of people dumped buckets of freezing ice water over their heads to raise awareness for ALS, a neurodegenerative disease. L.A. Beast wanted to join in the good cause, so he took the icy plunge and showered himself with the frigid liquid. But, he wasn't done yet.
After he dried off, he took another plunge. This time out of an airplane thousands of feet in the air. He went skydiving to put the good-cause cherry on the cake. He loved every second of the tandem freefall, and once the chute finally opened, he told the camera, "I think I just (expletive) my pants." Classic L.A. Beast ending his video on a messy note.