His name is James Charles, he’s a makeup artist, and he saw his “virtual reign” threatened for an incredible reason.
He had 16 million followers and boasted of being one of the most influential male make-up artists on Youtube. Own line of makeup, thousands of sponsors around the world, and even an invitation to the MET Gala. Now, the career of James Charles is in danger…
The scandal began with a war between old friends: James infuriated Tati Westbrook, a 37-year-old Youtuber who also reviews make-up products, and she didn’t forgive him. Since she launched the 19-year-old to fame, she decided to end his career with a simple message.
The makeup artist published a 43-minute video called “Bye, sister,” which drove the networks crazy. In it, she explained how Charles had betrayed her, advertising a vitamin brand that was the competition of her own company, Halo Beauty.
She even went a step further, denouncing inappropriate attitudes of the Youtuber: from criticizing colleagues to sexually harassing men.
Something about the way she related the facts caught the attention of the YouTube community.
Hundreds believed the version without question, and decided to “cancel” James Charles, just stopping from following his personal YouTube channel.
The young man went from 16 million subscribers to less than 13.
Meanwhile, Tati continues to accumulate fans: from 5 million to 9 million.
Charles tried to apologize publicly, but in vain. “I want to apologize to my best friend, Tati. She was like a mother to me from my first days in this industry, and she always gave me love, support, tools and advice,” he said.
“This weekend I published an Instagram story about some sleeping vitamins I was taking, because they helped me a lot to control my panic attacks at the Coachella festival. It wasn’t a paid publication or a boycott of Tati,” he explained.
His subscriber counter continues to drop as the hours go by, and everything indicates that this drop in networks is going to lead him to lose a lot of money.
After all, it seems that the YouTube war is much more ferocious than the TV war.