YouTube Star James Charles Loses A Mass Of Followers In Wake Of Controversy With Tati Westbrook
Although he is only 19-years-old, James Charles is one of the most famous beauty vloggers on the Internet. Not only was he the first ever male ambassador of makeup brand CoverGirl, but he’s also worked alongside famous celebrities such as Katy Perry and Iggy Azalea. As of Friday, the influencer had an impressive 16 million subscribers on YouTube, where he makes lifestyle and makeup videos. However, by Sunday afternoon he’d lost nearly 2 million. What sparked the massive drop? An ongoing feud James has with fellow YouTuber Tati Westbrook caused many of his supporters to turn their backs on him, according to CNN.
The drama all started after a supplement advertisement, of all things. James took to Instagram while he was at the Coachella Music Festival to post a video promoting the brand Sugar Bear Hair. This is a well-known supplement brand that many celebrities often endorse on social media. Why was it that when James chose to support the brand it caused such a stir? It was because Sugar Bear Hair is essentially a direct competitor to Tati’s own supplement brand, Halo Beauty. Tati, a longtime friend of James and one of the people who helped get his career started, viewed this as a complete betrayal.
Tati even went as far as to post a 43-minute video to YouTube exposing James and explaining why she decided to terminate their friendship. She accused him of spreading false rumors about her and her husband James to the rest of the online beauty community and taking their friendship and generosity for granted. Perhaps the most worrisome comment Tati made about James, however, was regarding the concerning way in which he often talks about sex. She claimed that James, who is gay, has spoken about wanting to hookup with straight men, disregarding their sexual orientation.
“To Tati and James Westbrook I’m sorry for everything that is going on, everything that I’ve put you through over the past few weeks. Most of my career over the past few years has been about me making mistakes and trying to learn and grow from them. I haven’t always done the best job of that, I can admit that. But I have always tried.”
James was already in some pretty hot water with his fans after it was announced that he’d be charging $500 a ticket for supporters to see him on tour. Thus far, it seems that Tati is the one that is coming out of this situation on top, as her subscriber count has drastically increased since the incident.
