Over the weekend, James Charles’ subscriber count plummeted at record levels and it all came about after Tati Westbrook posted Bye Sister, a call-out video that put the popular teen makeup guru on full blast.
Now that we’re back to the Monday grind, many are just catching up on the YouTuber drama and want to know exactly what James Charles did to Tati Westbrook that led to the resulting fallout.
What did James Charles do to Tati Westbrook?
On Friday, May 10, Tati posted a 43-minute video to her GlamLifeGuru YouTube channel where she fully explains why she decided to part ways with James. The video starts with several receipts proving just how supportive Tati has been of James over the years, often plugging his channel and his products for no personal gain.
Then, Tati moved into the reason she decided to post the video that has shaken up the beauty community so much and that has caused James Charles’ YouTube channel to lose subscribers at a record rate.
It turns out that the straw that broke Tati Westbrook’s back was James Charles’ support of Sugar Bear Hair vitamins. While that sounds petty, it really is not considering that they are the number one competitor to Tati’s own company, Halo Beauty.
Previously, and after extensively supporting James in all of his endeavors, Tati is said to have asked James Charles to promote her vitamins on his growing YouTube channel. He reportedly declined to support his friend, claiming that due to the young ages of his subscriber base, he didn’t feel comfortable pushing her vitamin line and didn’t think it was a good idea.
Tati also claims that James regularly talked about how much he didn’t care for her main competitor, Sugar Bear Hair. So when a promotional photo for Sugar Bear popped up in James Charles’ Instagram stories, Tati Westbrook was very hurt that he would seemingly betray her like that.
Adding insult to injury, James told Tati and now the world that the Sugar Bear Hair promotion was not pre-planned and that he was not paid for posting it. Instead, he claims that security for the brand stepped in and kept him safe at Coachella and for that, he was just doing them a favor — something he wouldn’t even do for Tati.
At the time, she posted a vague message about being betrayed.
Thanks to a callout from Gabriel Zamora, which is seen at the very beginning of Tati’s Bye Sister video, along with speculation from other YouTubers and those who pay close attention to them, it didn’t take long for people to realize that Tati was talking about James Charles in the post that she made back in April.
James still maintains that he was not paid but Tati makes it clear in her video that she does not believe his story and, instead, believes it was concocted in an effort to smooth over their friendship after selfishly promoting the other brand.
As Tati explained, after she started to take a hit over speculation that she was feuding with James, she decided to fully explain why she was so upset in the Bye Sister video, which has now been viewed more than 33 million times. That video can be viewed below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoVZg4KjRxU
The reason James Charles has lost nearly 3 million YouTube subscribers
Since May 10, James Charles’s subscriber count has dropped by more than 2.7 million even though he quickly responded to the Bye Sister video with a tearful apology in which he maintained his Sugar Bear Hair story but still apologized to Tati Westbrook and her husband and didn’t deny any of the other things he was accused of doing.
While many support Tati Westbrook and understand why she’s so upset with James Charles, that’s not the only reason his subscriber count is dropping at a record rate. His diminishing fanbase can also be attributed to bad behavior that Tati also talked about in her video and that has been backed up by a few other beauty gurus and celebrities since his fall from grace began.
This centers around James Charles’ alleged predatory behavior when it comes to his interest in “straight boys.”
In Tati’s video, she described a birthday dinner where she accused James of relentlessly flirting with a waiter who was clearly straight and clearly not interested in him. She said his behavior was so aggressive that it was making people uncomfortable and that when she asked him to stop, citing that the waiter was not gay, James’ response was that it didn’t matter because he was a celebrity.
While Tati Westbrook didn’t go too deep into accusations that James Charles was aggressively pursuing sexual relationships with straight men, she definitely got the ball rolling and others quickly added fuel to the fire.
Singer Zara Larsson was one of the first to jump on Twitter and claim that James had appeared in her boyfriend’s DMs and also commented on some of his photos.
Jeffree Star also weighed in with a tweet that was soon deleted. He wrote, “There is a reason that Nathan banned James Charles from ever coming over to our home again. There’s a reason why I haven’t seen him since @GlamLifeGuru’s birthday in February. He’s a danger to society. Everything Tati said is 100% true.”
I’m waiting for this Jeffree Star ?? pic.twitter.com/onbFKi5jr3
— senpaiya (@senpaiya_) May 13, 2019
Clearly triggered by the James Charles drama, Jeffree Star tweeted and deleted again, this time at James’ younger brother.
Ian Jeffrey, James Charles’ 17-year-old brother, tweeted asking, “Why does everyone act so tough over the internet?”
Jeffree quickly responded, asking him,”Why is your brother a predator?? Why’d you really move back to NYC? Exactly. Shut the f**k up.”
WOW! #JeffreeStar vs #IanJeffrey pic.twitter.com/e76n7Ff2CC
— Eraz Rock (@ErazRock) May 12, 2019
Both tweets were quickly deleted but the screenshots remain and now so do questions about what may have caused James Charles’ little brother to move or what the circumstances may have been.
In addition to these call outs, James Charles is also losing celebrity support as many have stopped following him on social media.
According to Metro, the growing list of celebrities turning their backs James Charles include the Kardashians and Jenners, which is notable since both Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian have worked with him in the past.
Additionally, Miley Cyrus, Shawn Mendes and Demi Lovato are all noticeably missing from James Charles’ list of followers. Ariana Grande, Shane Dawson, Katy Perry, Iggy Azalea and Laura Lee also appear to have hit unfollow after Tati Westbrook called him out.
It’s not clear yet just how far James Charles’ subscriber count will drop or if this drama will be career ending. Currently, his numbers continue to fall as members of the beauty community and celebrities disassociate themselves from him.