More than six months after YouTube beauty guruJames Charlesfacedintense internet scrutinyafter avicious feudwith former friend and fellow YouTuberTati Westbrook, the 20-year-old star admits that he still doesn’t feel quite like himself.
Charles, who previously admitted thescandal severely impacted his mental health, opened up about the the place he’s at now in a new candid interview withPapermagazine.“I’m not mentally in a place where I want to be. What’s even harder to swallow is that it’s been six months since all the drama happened,” the star said.
Youtube/Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Jeiroh Yanga for PAPER
At the time of their feud, Charles fired back at Westbrook’s video in a more in-depth video of his own titled “No More Lies” where he shut down all her sexual harassment allegations. He also clarified the situation in his new interview withPaper.
“The reality is that the ‘hook-up’ that was being discussed was completely consensual. It was with a boy who told me that he was bisexual and later on told the world he was bisexual. Therefore there’s nothing wrong with that,” Charles said.
“What that statement implies is that gay men are all predatory, which is disgusting, not true and very dangerous to put out there,” Charles said. “The whole situation was scary for the LGBTQ+ community and paints a really bad picture of gay men.”
Pulling up receipts of their text messages, in his latest video Charles alleged that Westbrook’s claims were untruthful.
“Despite what Tati said in her video, this whole situation was not a big scheme that was orchestrated beforehand. It really did happen on the spot,” he said, claiming that he had reached out to the brand after feeling concerned for his safety atCoachella, as he remembered the brand had recently provided security for another one of his friends at the festival.
Then as the feud escalated, Westbrook deleted her original take-down and explained thatshe was ready to move on from the drama— and urged her fans to do the same.
“In my original video, I felt the needto publicly breakup with James with a warning callloud enough for him to hear,” she continued. “I was attempting to explain my upset and concerns so that everyone would understand my position and end the speculation that it was all over vitamins.”
source: people.com
