James Charles has lost more than 800,000 YouTube subscribers after fellow make-up artist Tati Westbrook spectacularly cut ties with him in a 40-minute video.
[jwplayer W7JCDnGm]
According to the YouTube statistics tracking site Social Blade, James’ subscribers count dropped from 16.5 million to 16.0 million to 15.7 million in the hours after Tati’s video. And honestly, in the time it takes to write this, he’ll lose thousands more.
If you’re not even a little invested in YouTube but live for the drama, here’s a summary of how it all went down.
OG beauty guru Tati – founder of Halo Beauty, mama to six million subs, former mama to James Charles – was the 19-year-old’s first mentor in the business. James actually credits Tati as being the reason he got into makeup in the first place. In just two years, James amassed 16 million – well it was 16 – subscribers and has gone on to collab with Morphe to produce his own palette. Most recently, he attended the bloody Met Gala. The two often featured in each other’s videos, James even did Tati’s wedding makeup so in YouTube land, this is a huge fucking deal.
Back in April, during Weekend 1 of Coachella, James shared a sponsored post for SugarBear vitamins on Insta… which is the direct competitor of Halo Beauty. Tati was crushed and immediately hopped on Instagram to film a very cryptic, very emotional video of herself. She didn’t explicitly mention James but ya know, you know.
At the time, James apologised in an Instagram story saying: “I’ve supported Tati both online and off like she has done for me and I am devastated that I hurt someone that I truly love and have endless respect for.”
And all was seemingly well until six million people around the world got a notification for “Bye Sister”. In the video, Tati said she felt disrespected and used after years of friendship and mentoring. She also said that she no longer wants to apologise for James’ recent behaviour, including comments he made about wanting to hook up with a straight waiter at a restaurant – seemingly unconcerned by the waiter’s sexual orientation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoVZg4KjRxU
As these things go, James has since uploaded a response video to address everything but the damage is already done. At the time of writing, James’ video is on 159,000 likes and 651,000 dislikes.
After weeks of being on the wrong side of drama, shit has well and truly hit the fan for James Charles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ws6nxMk6I0
What. A. Mess.
Meanwhile, on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/PopCraveNet_/status/1126960922285580288
can anybody please tell me how to lose weight as fast as James Charles is losing subscribers and followers? #jamescharles pic.twitter.com/CXvxDxAHm5
— Fabrizio Valerio (@frabiziovalerio) May 11, 2019
