James Charles, one of the internet’s best-known beauty influencers, became the center of controversy after posting a video in which he publicly attacked a woman who had lost her job at Spirit Airlines.
The worker had sent him a private message with a link to a GoFundMe campaign, explaining that she was facing financial difficulties after losing her job. Charles decided to turn that message into content and responded with a video lasting about two minutes.
In it, he called her “lazy piece of s—” (“lazy piece of s—“) and “entitled” (“self-important” or “entitled”), while also saying that, in the time she had spent messaging influencers and celebrities, she could have applied for other jobs. “Welcome to the real world”, he told her.
The video was quickly criticized, and Charles eventually deleted it. However, he initially did not fully retract his comments: he posted another video in which he acknowledged that he had used overly harsh words, but maintained that he still stood by the central idea of his message. Shortly afterward, he deleted that post as well.
Finally, he posted an apology. This time, he acknowledged that his behavior had been “rude”, “obnoxious”, “privileged”, and completely unnecessary. He also admitted that he could have simply ignored the message instead of turning the situation of someone who was asking for help into a video for his followers.
The controversy ultimately turned into a much broader discussion about the way people with large platforms judge the financial difficulties of strangers. And in this case, Charles himself ended up acknowledging that he had crossed a line.