James Charles is apparently still feeling blue more than six months after he faced mass condemnation following a feud with ex-friend and fellow YouTuber Tati Westbrook.
In an interview with Paper magazine, the 20-year-old beauty guru admitted the controversy has taken a toll on his mental health, telling the mag:
“I’m not mentally in a place where I want to be. What’s even harder to swallow is that it’s been six months since all the drama happened… I thought by this time I’d be completely good — back to normal, if you will — and that’s not the case.”
The scandal, for those who don’t know, came when Westbrook accused Charles of betraying her, spreading lies about her, making shady comments about other beauty influencers, and sexually harassing straight men.
Photo: James Posts Nude Photo After Hackers Take Over His Twitter Account!
While Tati’s video has since been deleted, James took a hit from her tea: he lost nearly three million subscribers, dropping from 16.5 million subscribers to 13.8 million in just three days, while the dreaded #JamesCharlesIsCanceled hashtag began trending on social media.
He has since regained mostly all his followers, but the initial nosedive still got to him psychologically. He explained:
“We’re quickly getting to a point where cyberbullying, hating and cancel culture is getting stronger. I can say firsthand, they got to me. I was so grateful to be surrounded by close friends and family that were checking on me all day long, every single day, in the middle of the night, every 10 minutes to make sure I didn’t do something that I could never take back.”
Wow. Good thing he had such a strong support system!
The social media sensation went on to clear the air about the sexual harassment allegations, which he previously shut down in a video titled No More Lies.
He explained to Paper:
“The reality is that the ‘hook-up’ that was being discussed was completely consensual. It was with a boy who told me that he was bisexual and later on told the world he was bisexual. Therefore there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Like sexuality, the whole incident with the purportedly “bi-curious” Waiter From Seattle was a bit confusing. For his part, the Waiter posted a video admitting to hooking up with James for clout, seeing their makeout sesh as “a great opportunity” despite the fact that he apparently realized he wasn’t bi after a second of locking lips with the YouTuber.
In his Paper interview, James noted that Tati spinning that encounter as him harassing a straight man was harmful to the LGBTQ community as a whole. He explained:
“What that statement implies is that gay men are all predatory, which is disgusting, not true and very dangerous to put out there. The whole situation was scary for the LGBTQ+ community and paints a really bad picture of gay men.”
He’s not wrong there!
Tati’s rage toward James was apparently fueled by a sponsored advertisement the younger YouTuber posted from Coachella for Sugar Bear Hair vitamins, a competitor to his former friend’s own supplement brand, Halo Beauty.
In her original video, Westbrook claimed Charles didn’t reach out to her before posting the advertisement and that he had been lying about how long he was in contact with the brand to make the sponsored post. Charles defended himself in his own video, telling fans he had actually reached out to the brand for extra security at Coachella, and the deal happened from there.
He shared:
“Despite what Tati said in her video, this whole situation was not a big scheme that was orchestrated beforehand. It really did happen on the spot.”
The two have since vowed to stop fighting and move on from the drama, but it sounds like James is still greatly affected by it.
Do U think he’ll ever get over this?