James Charles has apologized to The Hills star Lauren Conrad after he criticized her new beauty line in an Instagram Story. The makeup guru and popular YouTuber took to social media on August 19, and slammed the PR package he received from Lauren’s team which was full of empty products. “I just opened a PR package from a new makeup brand from somebody who has no business having a makeup brand,” he said in the video. “Stop making makeup brands. Stop! Stop!”
The 34-year-old reality TV star and businesswoman has been in the beauty game for longer than James, and her fans quickly jumped to her defense online. Twitter user @crstnagnzlz wrote, “wait did james charles just say LAUREN CONRAD (!!!) has no business starting a makeup brand ??? LAUREN CONRAD ????? the woman who invented winged liner ???” James quickly issued an apology, taking to Instagram to explain his comment.
“Wanted to write an apology to @LaurenConrad for my stories earlier. I’ve been on the verge of tears all day long from a ton of things going wrong & opening her PR package was the icing on the cake of weird things happening today,” he captioned a selfie of himself. “My stories talking about the products were supposed to be funny but they just came across as nasty because I was so upset, not with her, but with other things that happened today. Lauren and I spoke privately about the misunderstanding & are both good.”
The OG reality star also took to Instagram to explain the mishap with her products: “For those asking about the empty components sent to James… let me tell you a funny story.” Lauren went on to explain that she filled makeup bags with empty samples to ensure they all fit, but forgot to swap them out for the real products when they arrived.
The whole blunder comes just one week after James issued an apology to Alicia Keys after he slammed her upcoming beauty line with e.l.f. Cosmetics. The 21-year-old took took to Twitter on August 6 to explain why he subtweeted the “Girl on Fire” singer. “Yesterday I posted a subtweet about how I thought some celebrities shouldn’t launch makeup lines,” he began. “It was about @aliciakeys. A few years ago, she announced that she would no longer wear makeup, so I was bothered because many celebrities come into the beauty space as a cash grab without any actual passion and then leave.”