Popular beauty blogger and YouTube star, Laura Lee, is currently under fire for racist tweets that she posted in 2012. In the messages, Laura wrote things like, “N***as in Paris? Whaaaat I thought they couldn’t afford to leave Compton! LOL,” and “How do you blindfold a Chinese person? Put floss over their eyes!” Laura, who previously had more than 5 million subscribers on her YouTube page, lost hundreds of thousands in less than a week once the tweets surfaced. It’s also reported that her daily earnings went down $68 a day since the scandal surfaced last week. Here’s everything to know:
1. Laura has posted a video apology. Laura initially wrote out an apology for her re-surfaced tweets on Twitter, but she was slammed for continuing to post makeup tutorials on YouTube amidst the scandal. She finally posted a video apology on Aug. 19, in which she fought back tears while speaking directly to her fans. “I’m so sorry for disappointing you,” she said. “It hurts me so bad to disappoint you all who have supported me for so many years.” However, she is also being called out for this video, as she claimed to have “retweeted” the racist messages, when screen grabs show that they came from her own account.
2. She has her own makeup line. After collaborating with well-known makeup brands like Too Faced and MAC, Laura launched the start of her own collection in Sept. 2017. She released her first eye shadow palette that year, followed by a second in April 2018, along with some other products.
3. She’s married. Laura is married to Tyler Williams, who she started dating in February 2008, meaning they’ve been together for more than ten years. At first, she kept her relationship with Tyler private, but she finally introduced him to her followers in 2015. They live in Los Angeles together.
4. She was on an entirely different career path before turning to beauty blogging full time. Laura was previously a medical assistant for a dermatologist in Alabama, where she grew up. She’s also worked as a preschool teacher.
5. She previously called out Jeffree Star for HIS racist tweets. Popular social media star, Jeffree Star, was embroiled in a controversial situation of his own back in 2017, when old videos of him making racist comments surfaced. Now, fans are claiming that Laura tried to “sabotage” Jeffree amidst his scandal, only to now be involved in one of her own. Jeffree himself couldn’t help but fire back at Laura, tweeting, “Imagine trying to bully me but you actually end your own career instead.” He also took to Snapchat to rave about how much he loves “karma.”