Whew chile, can you say dramatic but within reason! So if you live for the beauty industry, of course, you know who James Charles, 19, and Tati Westbrook, 37, are. And if you don't, they are both beauty influencers who got their start on YouTube and now both have successful careers in cosmetics. In fact, Tati Westbrook was James Charles mentor when he first started his YouTube channel a couple years back.
The internet went into a frenzy on Friday, May 10, after Westbrook posted a 43-minute long YouTube video titled "Bye Sister." And if you watch James Charles YouTube videos, you know his catch phrase is, "Hi Sisters." In the video she talked about her friendship with James Charles over the past few years.
She explains how she helped him grow, featuring him on her videos, contracts, inappropriate interactions, Halo Beauty , Sugar Bear Hair, ending their friendship and most importantly, James Charles infatuation with straight men and trying to manipulate them into gay sexual activities. As well, she address Charles spreading lies about her and slammed him for saying hurtful things about other beauty influencers.
Charles, who is traveling in Australia, responded with an eight minute video titled “Tati” on Saturday, May 11, and apologized to his former friend and her husband, James Westbrook, admitting that “there’s nothing I can say or do to ever earn that friendship or trust back.”
In the video he talks about how great the Westbrooks are and how they've guided him. He also expressed his guilt about being so public with this his personal life pertaining boys and how his career is based off him making mistakes and trying to learn from them.
The feud ultimately started when Charles posted an insta-story last month promoting Sugar Bear Hair products after they helped him with security at Coachella. Even though it was only a 24-hour post, Westbrook caught a glimpse and took to her own insta-story.
Both Insta-stories shown below.
In the past, Charles turned down a request from Westbrook to promote her hair brand, Halo Beauty, because his audience was majority young teenagers. So, she felt betrayed after James promoted her top competitor products.
Since the "Bye Sister" video uploaded, Charles has lost almost two million subscribers to his channel, while Westbrook has gained almost three million. Charles has received tremendous comments of backlash and lost celebrity following from Kylie Jenner, Kim Kardashian, Katy Perry, Shane Dawson, Miley Cyrus, Jeffree Star, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato.
Two things that you should notice is that within the video she shared links to buy her products which then, honestly, made it an ad. And Charles promoted Sugar Bear Hair sleeping vitamins not their hair product. Yet again, many can say it was the principle of loyalty to friendship.
Tati Westbrook embraced and invested time to help build James Charles career and she politely may have ended it as well. Life lesson, don't bite on the hand that feed you.