The stakes were high for Beast Games contestant Mia Speight — but defying all odds is almost second nature to her, and funneling through one thousand contestants to make it to the final episodes reignited the fire in her to keep going.
As a passionate advocate for change, Speight has dedicated much of her life to uplifting communities in Baltimore and worldwide. She was drawn to the new Prime Video reality television competition series because she is someone who loves a good challenge.
“I’m a competitor,” she told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “I grew up with, you know, my siblings, and my brother was only a couple years older than me. So a lot of times, it was, ‘Take your sister with you,’ and that had me playing football with the boys, riding bikes, doing all those crazy things that guys did. So it made me not afraid of competition.”
What drew her to the competition?
“[I’m] not afraid to be physical or mental,” Speight said. “For me, I love a mental challenge. As a former personal trainer, I’m a glutton for punishment. I love to torture myself, putting myself in challenging situations to see how tough I am and what I can overcome. So I love challenges — it makes you grow as an individual, not from things that are easy, but things that are hard. [They] help you to go to the next level, dig deeper, get to a different spiritual level. And also, sometimes it just shows different sides of you, meaning that sometimes you don’t know how much you do have or how much grit you do have to make it to the next level. That’s where [Beast Games] really appealed to me because I was like, ‘Hey, I’ve never done this.’ It’s something that’s not in my comfort zone, so that’s what kind of drew me in.”
Competing against 1,000 other people for a massive prize of $5 million was no easy feat for Speight. Yet, she powered through, making it to Episode 6 of 10 and walking away as a winner after being awarded her own island.
Her thoughts on leaving the show
“It felt good, bittersweet to a point because I thought I would make it further, but on my merit, I wanted it to be based on my own merits. But I did everything I wanted to do — but it was like the time was almost too short, if that makes sense. It was like I wanted to experience everything possible in the game,” Speight said. “So I felt like … this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it will never probably be presented to me again, so I felt blessed that I got a chance to get to a level in the game that was high enough that I could better myself, overcome challenges and also show people it can be done, no matter how much the odds are against you.”
Now that she’s walked away from Beast Games (still a winner, with her very own island to show for it), the Baltimore native said she’s more inspired than ever to continue what one would call her soul’s work.
“I’ve always been a proponent of missionary work since I was a very young child,” Speight said. “My dad took me to nursing homes. We gave clothing out to the homeless. And then as an adult, I went to seminary and I studied world missions, the actual perspective on world missions, how to actually do missionary work in the correct way.”
She added, “So I’m going to continue to do what I’m doing on my own platform, that I’ve done for years. I’ve been a community advocate in Baltimore, where I speak to the youth and volunteer, and I teach the youth here in Baltimore. I’ll continue to push forward things that I think are important to me and my faith. Those are things that are important to me: helping people, empowering people, educating people and also being an advocate for change … helping with the community and being a person that’s putting up their time, talents and gifts to see people that are in the same city thrive, so that they can get the information about opportunities that come along.”
New episodes of Beast Games are available on Prime Video every Thursday. The series winner will be announced Feb. 13.
