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5 year oldTati Westbrook and James Charles have been playing a high stakes game of back-and-forth for a couple of weeks now. What started with Charles taking on a forbidden sponsorship with Sugar Bear Hair vitamins escalated into a spat that, across all videos involved, has racked up over 164 million views. Westbrook's scathing 43-minute video, "BYE SISTER..." is now unlisted, but has gathered over 50 million views.
On Sunday Charles uploaded his own 40-minute video in which he defends himself against the myriad of accusations, which range from alleged sexual harassment to entitled behavior.
"There's nobody that wants this over with as much as I do," Charles begins. "Unfortunately, there have been allegations made against me and I don't really feel comfortable just 'moving on' from those. I would like to take this video today as an opportunity to kind of explain everything that has happened," he continues.
The video contains screenshots, timestamps, dates, and details that would make any uninformed person scratch their heads and wonder, "Why do I care about 'the Seattle trip?'" To viewers that have been keeping up with the drama, though, Charles' explanations offer a different perspective of what may have happened behind the closed doors of YouTube's beauty elite leading up to the feud.
At the height of the feud, fellow beauty YouTuber Jeffree Star, for unknown reasons, decided to insert himself by tweeting some since-deleted tweets aimed at Charles and his younger brother, Ian. In the tweets he called Charles a "danger to society" while backing Westbrook's initial accusations. Star released his own video, titled "Never Doing This Again," on Sunday night in an attempt to explain just why he felt the need to intervene.
"Today I would like to shed some light on the entire experience. Because I think that things are getting, crazy, dangerous, and we need to have a conversation," Star says gravely. He goes on to apologize for his participation in the dispute, and express how his temper got the best of him. Star never apologizes to Charles specifically.
Sunday night, the choppy waters of the beauty community finally came to a glassy still. Westbrook took to her Notes app to type out a statement, calling for an end to the drama. You know it's serious when a celebrity busts out the Notes app.
"I have been in communication with James Charles through an intermediary for the last week, and we believe it is in the best interest of our community, our viewers, and our own mental health to put this matter to a rest," the so-called Mother of YouTube wrote, accompanied by a broken heart emoji.
— Tati Westbrook (@GlamLifeGuru) May 19, 2019
"Even in this moment, I still have so many things I'd like to clear up, however the continued call for 'receipts' is nothing more than a call for never-ending bloodshed," she continued.
Amidst the drama, Charles and Westbrook both saw their subscriber counts fluctuate, though Charles took the biggest hit initially, loosing over 4 million. However, he's gained at least 1.5 million back, according to Social Blade, and his numbers continue to rise. After gaining over 5 million subscribers on YouTube, Westbrook's count is beginning to fall. Star's is also beginning to dip.
Alas, it's time to put the popcorn down and dismiss any more rumblings of cancelations. All parties involved have expressed interest in taking some time off, so don't be waiting with bated breath for the next installment— it's done. For now.
Game of Thrones is over and so is the beauty community drama. I guess we'll just have to twiddle our scrolling thumbs until something new happens. I just can't wait until this feud is memorialized in a Lifetime movie. Maybe Lori Laughlin could make a return to play Westbrook.
Until then, bye sisters.
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