James Charles vs. Tati Westbrook: from Family to Enemies

Twenty year-old James Charles, a popular Youtube beauty guru and self-made millionaire, has not enjoyed a career without controversy. From his resurfaced tweets making jokes about Ebola in Africa to his edited yearbook photos, he generates much conversation which in turn garners him more fame and money.

On May 10, 2019, Youtuber Tati Westbrook, a long-time friend and self-proclaimed “mother figure” to Charles, posted a video on her channel titled “BYE SISTER…,” a direct reference to his popular catchphrase “sister,” his name for his fans. Quickly, this video began to gain momentum in millions of views, likes, and shares as many were immersed in the shocking drama that Tati had revealed.

The incident began when James Charles advertised SugarBear vitamins, a competitor of Tati’s own brand, Halo Beauty vitamins, on his Instagram account.

In the video, Tati details how she felt betrayed by Charles’s promotion of SugarBear vitamins given she boosted his Youtube career in the first place. “I wrapped as much love as I could around this kid, more from a parental stance than a friend stance,” Tati said.

However, the most controversial part of Tati’s video is James’ confusing and allegedly “predatory” relationships with straight men. In “BYE SISTER…,” Tati details the instances when James Charles exhibited problematic behavior with numerous men who had claimed to be straight or simply experimenting.

One such occasion was with model Gage Gomez, whom James Charles brought to the Coachella music festival in April of 2019. This particular story was already known to fans even before Tati’s “Bye Sister…” video—screenshots of Gage’s and James’ text messages were leaked on Youtube. Many interpreted the texts to depict Charles as a jealous, controlling partner.

Westbrook also mentioned a time when she, some friends, and James were having dinner together in a restaurant. “You were talking in detail about things you wanted to do to the waiter,” Tati says, addressing James, “and when I said, ‘James, he’s straight’, you said, ‘It doesn’t matter, I’m a celebrity.’” This particular quote attracted a significant amount of attention as many fans

Shortly after this video was posted, James rapidly lost fans and supporters. The drop from 16 on to 13.5 million subscribers on Youtube within 2 days is being cited as the fastest drop in subscribers since the Logan Paul incident in early 2018, in which Paul filmed the dead body of a man who had committed suicide in Japan’s infamous “suicide forest” and laughed at it with his friends. This was only exacerbated by James’ apology video, dubbed “Tati,” which as of May 4, 2019, stands at 3.2 million dislikes.

However, James did not go down without a fight. On May 18, he uploaded a 41-minute long response to Tati’s allegations. This video was titled “No More Lies,” and quickly discredited the claims from both Tati and the many accusers who have publicly told their story about James Charles after the upload of the original video.

In “No More Lies,” James Charles revealed the many attempts he had made to try to communicate to Tati face-to-face about the SugarBear deal, and denounced the cancel culture that has allowed many viewers to lose faith in his character before understanding the issue from both sides. Many also noted that Tati was mostly angry about the business aspect of the drama, rather than the much more socially prevalent predation issue, which James also addresses.

“First of all I am a 19-year old virgin. I talk about boys quite a lot on my social media networks, clearly now it isn’t acceptable anymore,” said Charles. “I have never, and would never, and will never use my fame, money, or power to manipulate or get any sexual actions from a guy. It is disgusting, it is not me, and the fact that Tati brought this blows my mind, because she knows the real story.”

Upon viewing this response, many watching the drama unfold between these two beauty gurus were unsure of which side to support, as James Charles quickly began to see a rise in subscribers shortly after the video was posted. This scandal caused yet another discussion on the validity of cancel culture on the Internet. “Cancel culture” is synonymous with the action of destroying someone’s career for their socially or politically problematic actions in the past or present.

“His social media channels have been flooded with negative comments and former fans have posted short videos on TikTok, in which they find myriad ways to vandalize Charles’s Morphe palette. One dropped the palette into a bathtub full of water. Another painted a snake over the compact’s logo. Still another painted, in what appears to be Wite-Out, the words “Bye Sister” — a reference to the title of Ms. Westbrook’s video,” notes Valeriya Safronova, reporter for the New York Times.

Although the majority of this drama occurred in early May, the impact of this event will still hold weight in the future upon discussing the values of online culture that so often seeps into the culture of real life, especially among millennials and teens. Where should the line be drawn in order for someone to be cancelled, if at all? Can someone ever truly learn from their mistakes? And most of all, how far should the consequences go?

by ATHENA LI