Well, this tweet didn’t age well. Five years before beauty vlogger Tati Westbrook, 37, accused James Charles, 19, of trying to “trick a straight man into thinking he’s gay” and attempting to “manipulate someone’s sexuality,” he tweeted, “attractive straight boys will be the death of me.” Is this dude a seer or something? (Former) fans resurfaced the old tweet after James’ fellow beauty bloggers called him out, and they couldn’t stop trolling him about it. “This flopped so bad sweetie,” one person commented. Another replied, “foreshadowing,” while one person said, “Well, you didn’t lie…” Most of the responses were pics of clowns, to be honest. As many pointed out, James was only 14 years old when he tweeted this.
The scandal started on May 10 when Tati called out James on YouTube for “betraying” her by posting an ad for SugarBearHair at Coachella, a brand that rivals her Halo Beauty. While dragging James for that, she brought up an old controversy: James’ pursuit of straight men romantically, something which he himself has joked about multiple times online. “It’s really disgusting to manipulate someone’s sexuality, especially when they are still emerging into adulthood, and don’t quite have everything figured out,” Tati said on YouTube. “You are using your fame, your power, your money to play with people’s emotions.”
“Lush Life” singer Zara Larsson, 21, chimed in, backing up Tati’s claims on May 11. She accused James of DMing her boyfriend, Brian Whittaker, 19, multiple times on social media. “I’m cackling cause he hit up my boyfriend in the dms several times knowing damn well he’s straight,” she tweeted. Jeffree supported Tati, as well, calling James a “danger to society.”
James Charles in 2014: “attractive straight boys will be the death of me”
James Charles in 2019: pic.twitter.com/aRaYY0UrYG
— Augusto (@AuggussGomez) May 11, 2019
— alara (@aallaarraa) May 11, 2019
The YouTuber and CEO of Jeffree Star Cosmetics tweeted on May 12 that “there is a reason that Nathan [Schwandt, 25, his boyfriend] banned James Charles from ever coming over to our home again. There’s a reason why I haven’t seen him since [Tati’s] birthday in February. He is a danger to society. Everything Tati said is 100% true.” Jeffree did not elaborate on what happened to get James banned from their home and we have no knowledge as to whether there is any truth to this statement.
James has since apologized to Tati for the business snafu, in his own YouTube video, which was also published on May 10. He spoke about the “boy situation.” While not addressing the allegation that he manipulated straight men, James did say, “Coincidentally enough Tati really was one of the people to sit me down and tell me how it looked from the outside and let me know, ‘Hey, talking to these boys might get you in trouble one day.’ And she was right.”