James Charles Clears The Air & Rebuts Claims Against Him In YouTube Feud

James Charles has responded to the allegations made against him in a new, 41-minute video titled “No More Lies.”

The lengthy video begins with Charles standing by his original apology video to Tati Westbrook. He denied the allegations of sexual misconduct made in Westbrook’s original video, “Bye Sister,” and explained why he worked with SugarBearHair, a direct competitor of her product line, Halo Beauty. In his original response video, Charles apologized to Westbrook for “everything that I put you through.”

In his new video, Charles attempts to address all of the allegations that have arisen in the week since he and Westbrook dropped their first videos.

According to Charles, while he had an artist pass during Coachella’s Weekend 1, he and his friends were only able to procure VIP passes for Weekend 2. Upon arriving for the second weekend, Charles claims he felt unsafe and was being mobbed by people. Denying Westbrook’s accusation that his collaboration with the brand was orchestrated in advance, Charles said he reached out to friend and fellow YouTuber Nikita Dragun for assistance and decided at the spur of the moment to partner with SugarBearHair to procure access to a more secure site at the festival. Dragun corroborated this earlier this week with screenshots shared to her Twitter.

Charles also denied Westbrook’s timeline of their communication after Coachella, claiming that he did try to reach out to Westbrook and her husband immediately and showed clips of times he previously promoted Halo Beauty products to refute her statement that he has never done so.

Charles addressed these allegations directly, refuting them point by point. "I am a 19-year-old virgin. I have never and will never use my fame, money, or my power to manipulate or get any sexual actions from a guy,” he said. “That is disgusting. That is not me. The fact that Tati brought this up blows my mind." In the video, Charles specifically addressed the allegation that he said “I’m a celebrity” during Westbrook’s birthday dinner where he met Sam Cooke, a waiter who later released a video about his encounter with Charles. Using screenshots of texts as examples, Charles showed how he and his friends, including Westbrook, have used the word “famous” as a synonym for “good” — not denoting actual celebrity.

As for Cooke, the waiter, Charles said their interactions were consensual. Cooke initiated their first conversation when he DMed Charles on Instagram after they met. After exchanging several messages, Charles invited Cooke to come hang out at his hotel room. Charles provided screenshots of their messages, and they show Charles explicitly stating that while he was inviting Cooke to his hotel that he “didn’t have to do anything.” In a video made by Cooke about his interactions with Charles, he corroborated Charles’ version of the story, saying that he agreed when Charles asked if he could kiss Cooke. “I was very nervous because I had never done anything with a guy and I was bi-curious so I said yes,” said Cooke in his video. “We ended up making out for around an hour.”

A direct message from Charles stating, “You’re not straight no matter how many times you tell yourself,” has been heavily criticized on social media in the aftermath of Westbrook’s accusations. Charles put their conversation in the context of several larger conversations between the two of them, but did not apologize and denied he has ever outed anyone, alleging that Cooke requested his input. Cooke saw things differently, saying in his video, "He still went on to say he thought I was bisexual or gay and attracted to him, when I told him different...Later on he went on to delete and unsend those messages, knowing he was in the wrong..."

Following Westbrook’s “Bye Sister” video, YouTuber and makeup artist Jeffree Star — according to screenshots of text conversations shared by Charles — reached out to Charles with several accusations. In text messages provided by Charles, Star mentions Charles’ allegedly controlling interactions with Cooke. Charles responded to this by saying, “He was absolutely not trapped in a hotel room.” Charles also claimed that Star accused him of pressuring Star's boyfriend’s brother, Zach, to send him photos over Snapchat. "Zach and I talked on Snapchat for a total of 10 selfies. It was very clear to me that he was not interested. The conversation stopped before anything could get remotely flirty,” Charles said in response.

Charles included a screenshot of a tweet received by his younger brother, Ian Jeffrey. Ian reportedly tweeted about a bully in his hometown, to which Star responded, “Why is your brother a predator?? Why’d you really move back to NYC? Exactly. Shut the fuck up.” Both tweets have since been deleted. “Many people were quick to call out Jeffrey for bullying a kid who had nothing to do with the situation. Literally, at all. And he deleted the tweet,” said Charles.

Star also allegedly texted Charles claiming another YouTuber, Grayson Dolan, had plans to call out Charles and “tell the world how you tried to molest him and touch him in his sleep.” Charles denies that Dolan ever intended on doing so, explaining he received a call from Dolan asking if he was okay when the news first broke. Charles went on to claim that any flirting between himself, Dolan, or Dolan’s twin brother, Ethan, was solely for the purpose of video content. Refinery29 has reached out to the Dolan twins for comment.

After Westbrook’s sexual misconduct allegations, singer Zara Larsson sent out a now-deleted tweet saying Charles had messaged her boyfriend “several times” despite knowing he was straight. Larsson later corrected this to say that it was one DM and several comments on his Instagram photos. Charles claimed that he didn’t know Larsson was dating the person in question.

After tweets from anonymous social media accounts (@teenagerlilacgrove on Instagram and @teenagerlilac on Twitter) alleged that Charles had sexually assaulted someone in high school, screenshots circulated showing who appeared to be Charles responding to the accusations by saying he thought it was consensual because "he did not say no." Charles alleges that both the initial claims and the DM responses were fabricated. Charles claims that the anonymous poster later publicly apologized and said that the DMs were Photoshopped and part of a “social experiment.” Both accounts have since been deactivated.

Charles concluded his video by saying that he still cares about Westbrook, Star, and the people who have called him out. "I still have love for these people and I hope that one day we all can sit down together in a meeting for closure, and also to discuss how in the future if problems do come up we can talk in private, only us involved," he shared. "But right now, I just need time and space to get my head back to where it needs to be and get my mental health back together before I, kind of, rekindle those friendships because everything that happened still really, really hurt."

Both Westbrook and Star have responded to Charles’ video. On Twitter, Westbrook said that she stands by her videos and wrote to “not twist my words into what they are not.” Star also took to Twitter to respond, writing, “Before you believe anything that was said today, remember there are always two sides to every story.”

Refinery29 reached out to Westbrook and Star for further comment.