James Charles (Internet personality)
James Charles Dickinson is an American Internet personality, beauty YouTuber and make-up artist. In 2016, he became the first male ambassador for CoverGirl.
Personal life
Charles is from Bethlehem, New York, and graduated from Bethlehem Central High School in June 2017. He is openly gay.As of 2019, his net worth is estimated to be $12m. In 2020, he purchased a $7m mansion in Los Angeles.
Career
Charles is most known for his YouTube channel focusing on makeup, which he launched on December 1, 2015. It currently has 20.3 million subscribers, making him the #1 most subscribed beauty guru. On May 6, 2019, his channel had 16.6 million subscribers, and on May 11, 2019, he became the first ever YouTube personality to lose over 1 million subscribers in 24 hours.On October 11, 2016, at the age of seventeen, Charles became the first male spokesmodel for cosmetics brand CoverGirl, working alongside brand ambassador Katy Perry.
In January 2019, he was invited to Birmingham, England, to open Morphe Cosmetics' second UK store.
In March 2019, Charles did the makeup for Iggy Azalea's music video shoot for "Sally Walker". He also made a cameo appearance in the video.
In April 2020, Charles confirmed that his YouTube series Instant Influencer would premiere on April 24, 2020. The series aims to find the next "beauty influencer", with Charles set to host.
Controversies
General media
In February 2017, when Charles was 17, he was criticized after tweeting a joke considered offensive about Africa and Ebola. He later issued an apology saying: "I am extremely sorry for what I said. There are no excuses. No one owes me forgiveness, but I've learned a lot from the experience. I hope that the people who might look up to me will be able to learn from my mistakes and not repeat them."In April 2019, Charles said that he was not fully gay, and a 5.5 on the Kinsey scale, saying that "there have been girls in the past who I've thought were very, very beautiful. There's also been trans guys in the past, too, that I was really, really into for a moment in time." These comments created controversy, and some claimed they were transphobic. Charles apologized shortly after, releasing a statement saying that his comments were unintentionally transphobic and that he should have chosen different words to convey what he meant.
Tati Westbrook controversy
On May 10, 2019, long-time collaborator Tati Westbrook uploaded a 43-minute long video titled "BYE SISTER ..." to her YouTube channel heavily criticizing Charles. In her video, Westbrook accused Charles of disloyalty, "manipulating people's sexuality" and "using ... fame, power and money to play with people's emotions". After this, Charles set a YouTube record for losing over 1 million subscribers in less than 24 hours. It continued to fall from 16.6 million subscribers around May 6, 2019 to a low point of 13.4 million on May 15, 2019, recovering somewhat in the days that followed. Westbrook's subscriber count increased by over four million over the same period.Charles later uploaded an 8-minute response video titled "tati", addressing the issues raised by Westbrook and apologizing to his fans and both her and her husband. This video received mostly negative feedback, with the video becoming one of the ten most disliked videos in YouTube history. On May 18, 2019, Charles made a second, 41-minute, video addressing the comments made by Westbrook, entitled "No More Lies". It presented evidence appearing to refute many of Westbrook's accusations and led to renewed support for Charles and criticism towards Westbrook. Soon after its posting, Charles regained a million subscribers and Westbrook lost two hundred thousand. Westbrook later removed the original video from her YouTube channel. The saga sparked analysis relating to cancel culture, the alleged toxicity of YouTube's beauty community, stereotypes of gay men being predatory and profits made from online "drama".
The week following Charles's subscriber drop, on May 21, 2019, YouTube announced that they would abbreviate subscriber counts across the platform. While the official announcement made no mention of the Charles vs Westbrook feud, many commentators speculated that it was a direct response to recent community obsession over subscriber counts, as seen in feuds such as this one and PewDiePie vs T-Series.
On June 30, 2020, Westbrook posted a video on her YouTube channel detailing the events that led up to, and occurred after her "BYE SISTER..." video, where she claimed that Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star manipulated her into making the video against Charles.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
| 2016 | The Ellen DeGeneres Show | Himself | Guest appearance | |
| 2017 | Zall Good | Himself | Guest appearance | |
| 2017 | Shane and Friends | Himself | Guest appearance | |
| 2017 | Apologies in Advance with Andrea Russett | Himself | Guest appearance | |
| 2018 | The Secret World of Jeffree Star | Himself | Episode: "Becoming Jeffree Star for a Day" | |
| 2019 | Nerdy Nummies | Himself | ||
| 2020 | Nikita Unfiltered | Himself | Episode: "James Charles Confronts Nikita" | |
| 2020 | Instant Influencer with James Charles | Himself | Host; 4 episodes |