James Charles and His History of Social Media Feuds, Scandals, & Controversies

James Charles has been, yet again, the face of another controversy on social media. The 21-year-old beauty influencer just can’t seem to stay out of drama, scandals, and feuds over the past few years.

James Charles (Photo: Twitter @jamescharles)

James, despite all of his controversies, maintains a loyal fan base who he calls “Sisters” through various social media channels. James has acquired over 25 million subscribers on his youtube channel, and has also created his own clothing brand called “Sisters Apparel” and makeup line collaboration with Morphe makeup.

I’ve compiled a list of all the controversial situations that James has been a part of (or started) since 2017, beginning with the most recent one.

Fake pregnancy photoshoot

James posted a picture on Instagram, where he has almost 27 million followers, of a fake maternity shoot where he posed with a very realistic pregnancy belly. The photoshoot was to promote his new YouTube that was being released titled “24 Hours Being PREGNANT!!.”

James Charles' fake maternity shoot (Photo: Instagram @jamescharles)

At the start of this video, James stated, "not to make light of pregnancies and the sensitivities and the complications that come around it." However, many still criticized him for his actions. Some took it further claiming that he targeted Halsey's recent maternity shoot, due to the similarities of the photos.

“To pretend to be pregnant when there is women who cannot. 😒😒”

• @princesshaybae (Twitter)

“this is actually gross and offensive to all women as a whole lol”

• @trustissued_ (Twitter)

“This kinda sucks, Halsey took these pictures to speak about her pregnancy after struggling with endometriosis and miscarriages...but what do I know”

• @kodabugmusic (Twitter)

Tati Westbrook and her “Bye Sister” video

This is probably the largest and most well-known scandal involving James Charles. Tati Westbrook is a beauty guru best known for her YouTube channel with almost nine-million subscribers.

Tati Westbrook "Bye Sister" video re-uploaded (Video: The Daily Parker)

In 2019, Tati posted a 43-minute video titled “Bye Sister” where she publicly ended her and James’ longtime friendship. She claimed she was blindsided by his endorsement of her competing vitamin brand, saying that James was only after fame.

In this video, she also made other claims about James using his fame to manipulate boys; Tati called James a bad role model" and said he created "over-sexualized" content. She later deleted the video, but not before James’ reputation took a major hit and he lost over three million YouTube subscribers.

Claiming he isnt “full gay” because he’s attracted to transgender women

In a YouTube video with vlogger Jeff Witteck, the two discussed sexuality, dating, and the Kinsey scale, a heterosexual-homosexual rating scale

James Charles and Jeff Witteck video (Video: James Charles YouTube)

"So the Kinsey Scale is from like, zero to six," Charles said to Witteck in his video. "Zero being like, completely straight, and six being like, completely gay. I truly believe the amount of people that are a flat-out zero, or flat-out six, is very, very small."

When asked where he put himself on the scale, James said that he feels he is at a 5.5 because there have been girls in the past who he thought were really pretty and he has been attracted to transgender men as well.

Many fans felt that this statement was extremely offensive and discredited trasngender men as actual men. James later apologized.

“i don’t understand how there’s people who don’t think what james charles said was transphobic Lol he literally said being attracted to trans men makes you less gay”

• @vicesking (Twitter)

While these are just a few of the past feuds that James Charles has been involved in, I have no doubt that there will be more to come in the future. We can only wonder what feud, scandal or controversy the influencer will land himself in next, sister.