YouTubers and makeup moguls James Charles And Tati Westbrook had a falling out.
The YouTube and social media battle of immense proportions is playing out right before our eyes between the two beauty bloggers.
The YouTube star and makeup artist Westbrook, has completely severed ties with 19-year-old YouTube megastar Charles.
As a result, Charles has lost over 1 million YouTube subscribers in less than 24 hours.
First of all, who is Tati Westbrook?
YouTube Star Tati Westbrook was born in the USA as Tatiana A. Krievins. As a child actress, she was known for her work on the American TV show ‘Greek’ from 2007 and the TV show ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ (1987). In 2010 she launched a YouTube channel called GlamLifeGuru where she hosts a five day per week beauty review show that receives 25 Million views per month by 3 Million followers. Most recently, she appeared in 100 episodes of Amazons Style Code Live as their LA Based Beauty Correspondent. She has been married to James A. Westbrook since January 11, 2017.
Who is James Charles?
James Charles Dickinson is an American Internet personality, make-up artist, and model. In 2016 he became the first male ambassador for CoverGirl. Charles launched his YouTube channel focusing on makeup in late 2015.
How do we know about this whole drama?
Well, Tati posted a 43-minute YouTube video titled: "BYE SISTER" in which, Westbrook explained the ongoing feud between both of them and her decision to cut her ties with James.
And boy did she spill some serious tea. Tati spoke about how she thought James was ungrateful and criticized his behavior. "How entitled do you have to be to think that you have it rough? You are a 19-year-old millionaire. You do not get to wake up and stress out about how unfair your job is. That is so ridiculous to me. Get off your high horse and have some respect. You don't have any for the people who are in this industry and that's the sad fact."
In case you didn't know, Tati was James' first beauty mentor. A lot of the time James spoke about how much he loves Tati and how she's the reason he got into makeup in the first place.
Timeline
April
That was when the drama started. During weekend 1 of Coachella, James posted a sponsored Instagram for Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins to his Instagram story.
Why is this a big deal? You might ask...
Well, Tati has her own vitamin brand called Halo Beauty, so naturally, Sugar Bear Hair is a huge competitor. Tati saw this as a betrayal.
So immediately after that, Tati went to her own insta stories and posted that she was upset he was promoting another brand.
So then, James posted an insta story apologising for hurting Tati's feelings.
May 10
Tati stayed quiet for the longest time, and then on May 10 she released her 43-minute video breaking everything down.
She explains that it was not just him promoting a vitamin brand, it was the fact that she had asked him to promote Halo Beauty multiple times, but he declined her offers, citing that his fan base was too young to be taking supplements.
Then he went on to promote Sugar Bear Hair and Sleep Vitamins.
Tati also mentions that there are several other reasons as to why she wants to cut ties, including that she "no longer wants to apologize for James' behavior."
In her video, she sopke about a few alleged incidents about James, including him saying hurtful things about fellow beauty community members. She wanted no part of it.
Here are some stats
As of now, Tati’s video has 23 million + views. Her highest ever. Before that, she had only hit a peak of 6.6 million views. Her video also has 2.1 million likes and only 42k dislikes.
"I absolutely fell in love with her grammar in the speech, she speaks a fair point. Not only did she call James out on his bad points, but she did it out of respect. ✊💕" said subscriber Hennesy Hernandez.
On May 10, the same day Tati released her video, James issued an official apology on his own YouTube channel.
"I am so disappointed in myself that I hurt her," James said in his latest upload.
His apology video has 21 million + views right now, with 1.6 million dislikes and only 324K likes.
At its highest point, May 6th 2019, James' channel had 16.6 million subscribers, a figure which has been rapidly dropping after controversy arose around May 8th 2019 and is currently at 14.6 million. He also has over 1.7 billion views on YouTube. As of early May 2019 he had over 16.1 million followers on Instagram, and 3.67 million followers on Twitter.
On May 11, 2019 James Charles became the first ever YouTube personality to lose 1 million subscribers in 24 hours, as of May 12 he has lost 2 million subscribers on his channel mainly because of the public controversy with Tati.
Newsweek reported that multiple celebrities have unfollowed James Charles on various social media platforms including:
YouTubers Tana Mongeau, Jeffree Star, and Shane Dawson; beauty mogul Kylie Jenner; musicians Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Twice, Iggy Azalea, and the makeup company Morphe Brushes.
UPDATE:
In the days since Westbrook posted her video, James Charles has also seen a rapid drop in his YouTube subscriber count, from about 16.5 million to 13.5 million, according to Social Blade, which compiles social media data, the New York Times reported.
His social media channels have been flooded with negative comments, and former fans have posted short videos on TikTok, in which they find ways to vandalize Charles' 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 Westbrook's video.
Other members of the "influencer community" have stepped into the fray to defend Charles or to add to Westbrook's accusations. Jeffree Star, who has been canceled in the past for saying racists things that he later called "disgusting, vile and nasty," said in a tweet that Charles "is a danger to society. Everything Tati said is 100% true." (He later deleted the tweet.)
It looks like Tati brought James into the beauty industry and she will take him back out.
