Here's the TeaJames Charles Addresses Accusations He ‘Flirted’ With Underage Boys — Scandals and Feuds Timeline

The Africa/Ebola Scandal

James came under fire from fans in 2017 after he took to Twitter and expressed his fear of getting the Ebola virus during a trip to Africa. After major backlash, he penned an apology. “I am extremely sorry,” James wrote on Twitter. “Regardless of my intentions, words have consequences. I take full responsibility and will learn and do better.”

At the time, he was the face of beauty brand, COVERGIRL, who also released a statement. “James Charles’ tweet does not represent COVERGIRL’s perspective. We agree his statements were inappropriate but appreciate that he has issued an apology. We are an inclusive brand and respect all people and cultures,” the brand shared.

Ariana Grande

During a 2018 video, James claimed that Ariana Grande was the “rudest celebrity” he had ever met. Their feud went down in the DMs after Ariana invited him backstage to a show. Shortly after they spoke, James realized that the singer was no longer following him, so he allegedly asked her if he did something wrong. According to James’ account of the story, she replied with, “Hey babe, I saw a lot of angry tweets from my fans and I would never want to disappoint them, so I unfollowed.”

The makeup artist said he responded and expressed his disappointment with her, but Ariana seemingly never replied. Nor did she publicly respond to the claims that James made in his video.

The Kinsey Scale Scandal

The beauty guru upset the trans community when he tried to explain the Kinsey scale —which describes a person’s sexuality — in one of his videos from April 2019. James said that he doesn’t consider himself to be “full gay.”

“There have been girls in the past who I thought were really, really beautiful. There’s also been like trans guys in the past, too, who I was like really, really into for a moment in time,” he said. Fans were quick to call out the YouTuber for his offensive statement, which seemingly implied that trans men aren’t actual men. Eventually, James took to Twitter and apologized for his remarks.

“I unintentionally implied that my trans brothers & sisters aren’t valid. This is NOT what I was trying to say. You are valid in your identity! I apologize [and] should’ve chosen my words wiser,” he wrote at the time.

Tati Westbrook

In May 2019, the beauty community was forever changed when Tati released a since-deleted 43-minute video that slammed James for allegedly manipulating straight men, spreading rumors and being a bad friend. She claimed that James went behind her back to do a social media campaign for SugarBearHair — a direct competitor of her wellness brand Halo Beauty.

She went on to explain that he never apologized and revealed that he always “gets what he wants.” Days after Tati posted his video, James publicly responded with his own upload that included detailed receipts, which seemingly proved her allegations to be false. He explained that he “doesn’t really feel comfortable just moving on” from the allegations, so he dove into a timeline of everything that went down and hit every major point Tati brought up.

The feud seemed to die down in June 2019 after both James and Tati asked fans to stop sending hateful comments toward each other. But where do they stand now? One year after the feud, Tati apologized for her role in the drama and revealed that, in December 2019, she and James met up at her Los Angeles home and “compared DMs, texts and stories about what happened behind-the-scenes” appearing to officially clear the air.

Jeffree Star

After Tati posted her video, Jeffree joined in on the scandal, seemingly coming to Tati’s defense and calling James a “danger to society.” Following the feud, Jeffree took to YouTube and posted an apology video directed toward James. “Most of you have seen some brutal tweets that I sent out last week,” the Jeffree Star Cosmetics founder said. “Because I said those things, that doesn’t equal me hating James Charles. He’s been in my life for a few years now. Are we the best of friends? No. But we had a real connection. I loved and cared about him and I definitely think I mishandled our friendship.”

In April 2020, Jeffree reignited the drama with James by explaining why he called him a “danger to society” in 2019. “It’s going to upset a lot of people, but the truth is that someone, and right now I legally can’t say who, told us a few things,” he explained on the “Mom’s Basement” podcast. “And we trusted that person’s opinion, and then another person said some things — that were friends with — and it really convinced us that he was a predator.”

James never publicly responded to Jeffree’s claims on the podcast.

Gage Gomez

Gage Gomez was James’ rumored 2019 Coachella fling. After the festival, however, Gage took to YouTube and exposed James for manipulating him, despite the fact that he identifies as straight. “James saw this as an opportunity to manipulate me as a person who may or may not have been trying to figure things out about their sexuality, after the fact that I told him I was straight multiple times,” Gage explained.

James publicly addressed the manipulation allegations in a lengthy post on his Instagram Stories, insisting he would never do such a thing. “He left out many details and accused me of pressuring him which is a blatant LIE, which has painted a false image of me being a predator.” James wrote. “I will not stand for this or take it lightly. I would never, have never and WILL NEVER pressure a guy to do anything. Everything that happened between him and I was 100 percent consensual.”

James also said that this would be his last time addressing the allegations publicly.

The Met Gala Backlash

The YouTuber was invited to attend the 2019 Met Gala, and people were not happy with his Instagram caption about the event. “My first met gala,” he wrote. “Thank you so much @youtube for inviting me and @alexanderwangny for dressing me! Being invited to such an important event like the ball is such an honor and a step forward in the right direction for influencer representation in the media and I am so excited to be a catalyst. Video coming tomorrow!”

James received major backlash from fans for using the term “influencer representation.” He addressed the situation publicly, in since-expired Instagram Stories.

“I wanted to say thank you for those who left positive comments on today’s Met Gala video, the reaction is definitely quite split,” James said at the time. “I knew this was going to happen though … Whenever an influencer does something ‘new’ people tend to be very up in arms about it, but I can see why. Regardless it was a such a huge honor, I met so many amazing people and nothing is going to take away my amazing time that I had.”

New Year’s Eve Video

In January 2020, James took to Twitter to deny rumors that he used the N-word in a video posted to his Instagram Stories during a New Year’s Eve celebration. The influencer rang in the new year at a party with his friends and during the event, James shared a video of himself singing along to Saweetie‘s “My Type.”

Although it’s since been deleted, some social media users were quick to capture the clip and accused the internet star of seemingly saying the N-word while singing along to the song. After the video began to go viral and #JamesCharlesIsOverParty trended on the social media site, the YouTuber took to Twitter to respond. He claimed that he skipped over the word.

“My guy did [you] say the N-word on [your Instagram Stories],” a fan asked, to which James immediately responded, “No? Turn up the volume & listen, I skip over it. How stupid would I have to be to confidently record a video of me singing the N-word and still have it up the next morning.”

TikTok Star AdamRayOkay

In February 2020, James posted a since-deleted Snapchat video imitating the popular Latinx TikTok character Rosa, made popular by AdamRayOkay— whose real name is Adam Martinez. While he was driving, James attempted to copy the character for his own version of one of Rosa’s most popular videos. After he started to receive some social media backlash, the YouTuber took down the video. James came under fire from Rosa fans who called out the YouTuber and said his video was “racist.”

Adam was not bothered by James’ Rosa video. After the clip went viral, he took to Twitter and wrote, “My videos are made to bring JOY to people all around the world. Let’s remember that and keep the positivity going!!!” 

The beauty vlogger also took to his own social media and seemingly addressed the situation. “I get that a lot of people don’t like me. I’ve learned to accept & understand it — but the extent that some people on this app are willing to go in attempt to ruin my life is truly sad. I hope one day people find a way to feel validation without having to bash others for likes,” he wrote. After the scandal went down, James and Rosa collaborated on a YouTube video.

TikTok Mugshot Challenge

With the use of makeup and prosthetics, various influencers were creating mock mugshots and posting them online in April 2020. But when James participated in the challenge and shared a photo with fake black eyes and a bloody nose, some people felt it glorified domestic abuse. “Only I could lazily smudge on some purple eyeshadow and fake blood to recreate a dumb TikTok trend and have it twisted into an actual scandal,” he wrote in a now-deleted tweet after he started to receive hate online for it.

When one fan opened up about her past abuse and admitted the trend has made her feel “dehumanized,” he explained, “I’m so sorry that you went through something so awful and traumatic. It’s a TikTok trend going around where people post their ‘mugshots’ and has nothing to do with domestic violence whatsoever. Love You.”

James continued, “This dumb trend has nothing to do with domestic abuse. What about action movies? Halloween? Special effects? Simple bloody noses? This is nothing new.”

“Despite the fact that hundreds of other influencers and artists have done something similar, I deleted the mugshot trend because it was never my intention to trigger anyone,” he wrote in one final tweet. “It’s a waste of time trying to have an open discussion with people who hate me regardless.”

‘Instant Influencer’ Backlash

When the cast was announced for his beauty competition series Instant Influencer, some people took to social media and slammed the beauty vlogger for a lack of diversity when choosing competitors for the YouTube show. James did not respond publicly to the fans’ backlash about the contestant, but a few weeks later after viewers criticized one of the show’s challenges, he responded publicly. The makeup mogul asked his four remaining contestants to film mock videos of themselves apologizing for a fake scandal in an episode, which aired in May 2020.

“As an influencer, when you grow a following, you will either say or do something that people might not like or might not agree with and eventually, you might have to apologize,” he explained. But some people were not happy with the task, and they quickly started to slam the beauty guru online.

“The way he just confirmed that when white [makeup artists] are being called out on their racism or any form of bigotry that the apology videos are not as sincere as y’all really want us to believe,” one fan wrote. James quickly replied, “This is a reach. This has nothing to do with skin tone. Influencers of every race have had to apologize for things in the past. This challenge was a lighthearted way to poke fun at cancel culture (hence the stupid scandals) and was in no way meant to invalidate actual bigotry.”

He added, “I can only speak for myself — I’ve had scandals that I have taken very seriously and addressed, such as the Ebola joke, but I’ve also been involved with stupid ‘scandals’ due to cancel culture where I’ve had to laugh it off. It’s just reality TV. Not that deep.”