May 10 was a dark day for the beauty community. Beauty guru Tati Westbrook posted a scathing 43-minute-long video to her channel, which exposed James Charles for betraying her and for allegedly manipulating straight men into engaging in sexual acts. Now that the scandal has spread like wildfire and caused James to lose an alarming 3 million subscribers in a matter of days, Tati hopped back online with a tearful video on May 16, begging the internet to stop sending him so much hate.
“I knew this would cause a lot of controversy. I know that. But I didn’t think it would get to this magnitude,” the makeup artist explained. “I didn’t think it was possible. And I want to share with you guys that I do really want the hate to stop. I want the picking sides and the abusive memes and the language and all of that — I really hope on both sides it can stop. That’s not why I made the video.”
So why did she make the video? Well, according to the 37-year-old, it was supposed to be a wake up call for the young YouTube star to start acting more age appropriate.
“This was just a last ditch effort for me to be really loud and vocal,” she explained. “And to wake up someone that I really love, and still do, before they go and make some really serious mistakes.”
Unfortunately, the scandal turned ugly extremely quickly, with the 19-year-old getting an overwhelming amount of hate from a community that used to praise him for his outstanding artistry and loyal following of 16 million subscribers. But even though the world turned their backs on the YouTube star ever since Tati dropped her video, she wants people to know that she doesn’t have any hate in her heart for him.
“I want you guys to know I don’t hate James Charles,” she said. “I don’t want you guys hating on him. I can’t even go online right now. It’s painful to watch someone that you have cared about be dragged and to know that this all started because of me, and I don’t think anyone deserves that. I just don’t. I think people deserve a wakeup call and I think they need to be called out for their actions, and I think someone’s got to do it.”
In fact, by being the one to call him out, Tati thought she would be the one to lose subscribers. As we now know, however, she’s gained nearly 5 million subscribers from the whole ordeal.
“I thought that I would be the one that would take the hit. I thought I was going against millions and millions of subscribers, and that my separate part of the internet, my 5 million would be affected, and that I would be the one losing subscribers for speaking up, and that I was going against someone with a lot more power.”
Tati also said that, if she could, she would give all of the newfound success back because that’s simply not what’s important. The internet personality then added that she needs some time to herself to reflect and heal from what’s happened since the scandal broke, and we really can’t blame her for that. Even through her healing, though, she doesn’t believe she and James will ever be able to repair their friendship.
“I feel like I need distance from the relationship and I don’t think it will be repaired, but I wanted the opportunity to face-to-face tell him that I don’t hate him, and I love him, and I don’t think he’ll get that for a really, really long time, and I don’t think anyone will.”
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