The beauty community blew up about two weeks ago after Tati Westbrook posted a 45-minute YouTube video “Bye Sister” addressing various claims about James Charles. A few hours later, James Charles posted a short response. Throughout the week, James Charles lost over 3 million subscribers before finally addressing all of Tati’s claims in a 45-minute video about a week later. In the time span between the posting of the two long videos, the internet blew up with claims and conspiracies regarding what Tati had said. Countless people across the web took in Tati’s word as fact and hated on James Charles solely based on her claims. Several other people such as celebrities and YouTubers inserted their own take on the claims.

In her video, Tati Westbrook started off explaining why she was making the video in the first place. Her main reason was centered around something that had happened earlier where James Charles promoted SugarBear Hair Sleep Vitamins on his Instagram story, knowing that they are Halo’s biggest competitor (Halo was founded by Tati.) Feeling betrayed, Tati at first she took to social media, posting a video saying things like, “When you do so much for people in your life, and they not only don’t return the favor, but they just don’t even see you.” At this time, James Charles posted the explanation to his Instagram, saying,“I did not think of the competition, which was a major oversight… I’ve supported Tati both online and off like she has done for me and am devastated that I hurt someone that I truly love and have endless respect for.” Later, Gabriel Zamora posted a response to Tati’s video calling her out for her complaints and being overdramatic, which made her decide she needed to open up about James Charles publicly, otherwise her words may get twisted. Back to Tati’s You Tube video. When James Charles explained it was because SugarBear Hair had helped him with security at Coachella in exchange for a small promotion, Tati took it as an excuse. She instead argued that a brand wouldn’t put themselves through the trouble of providing passes to not only James, but all of his friends who were attending as well. Tati also claimed that James Charles had paired with them, despite knowing it would hurt her brand. After explaining, she explained her relationship with James Charles: how she helped him launch his career in the makeup industry, work out contracts, promotions, and constantly offering her support for him.

What turned most of the Internet against James Charles is what she said next. Tati mentioned how frequently James Charles would use his fame and power to get his way with personal relationships. For one dinner, he was hitting on the waiter, who Tati mentions didn’t seem interested, and in response to criticism said something along the lines of “I’m famous, I can do what I want.”

A few hours later, James Charles posted an eight-minute response on YouTube apologizing for his wrongdoings and the hurt he brough to his and Tati’s relationship. Fans did not respond well to say the least.

In the days that followed, various celebrities unfollowed James Charles on social media. The Internet blew up with hate for James Charles as his follower count diminished by hundreds of subscribers every few seconds. Meanwhile, Tati’s increased by about 1.5 million. Jefree Star, another beauty guru, threw his views in the feud, claiming that all of Tati’s claims were right.

Tati followed up a few days later in a YouTube video “Why I Did It,” addressing that she wants the hate to stop, and that despite the hurt he caused her, she wants to have the hateful comments and remarks against James Charles stop.

A week after Tati’s first video was posted, Charles made a new video  called “No More Lies” to answer all of Tati’s claims against him. In the time span between the two videos, James Charles lost over 3 million subscribers from his channel (originally had over 16 million). Claims that Tati made against James Charles were quickly refuted by photographic proof. James Charles did indeed get help from SugarBear Hair at Coachella, reaching out to a friend who sent the company to help him out. He promised one promotional video, completely forgetting how it might affect Tati, and after realizing his mistake, attempted to reach out to her. James Charles also refuted Tati’s claims that he would throw himself at men, even when they were straight to convince them they were gay. In reality, only a part of their actual conversation was shown which appeared that way; but again, screenshots of conversations exonerated James Charles of her claims. Lastly, the line about being famous was actually an inside joke between James, Tati, and their closest friends which never had any serious meaning. The actual line was, “You’re so famous,” which one would say if something good happened to one of them.

After releasing his video, James Charles gradually gained back subscribers, his number increasing to 15 million as Tati’s decreased by about 250,000. Thinking about it, the whole situation shows how easy it is to spread drama online. Tati even mentioned she did not think the video would blow up so much. At the same time, James Charles ended up divulging an abundance of personal information including his thoughts drifting to a dark place during the whole thing, to the course of his entire relationship with another guy, as well as publicly admitting to being a virgin to millions of viewers. It seems shocking, when looking back, that such personal information was essentially forced out of him and divulged to the entire world.

While he claims it is not because of Tati’s video, James Charles canceled his tour as of May 28th. As a result of all the drama, he and Tati have stopped posting weekly videos for a while until both are mentally prepared to return into the public eye.