Do we like James Charles?
Our score: 3 out of 10. A real charity pledge, but admitted inappropriate conversations with under-18s, an unresolved lawsuit and a nasty 2026 rant leave the good-person side messy.
James Charles is a beauty influencer who built a big YouTube following and then lived through a very public pile-on. A 2019 feud with Tati Westbrook cost him a chunk of subscribers, and he has been rebuilding in public ever since. Most of what follows is that rebuild, and how it keeps going sideways.
The big one is 2021. Allegations that he solicited lewd photos from under-18s spread online, and in an apology video he admitted the conversations happened, saying “These conversations should never have happened.” Out reports that video has since been deleted. In February 2026 podcaster Ethan Klein paid for an LA billboard recalling it, and said in his own words he wanted to remind people of “the predator that James Charles is”; Charles and his team haven't commented publicly.
There's also an employment lawsuit. A former producer sued him in March 2020, alleging wrongful termination, disability discrimination and unpaid overtime, and, per Insider, that he used the N-word in front of her. Charles called the claims “ridiculous, absurd and untrue” and said he felt blackmailed. I couldn't find an outcome, so it stays alleged and unresolved.
On the harm test, nothing here is a campaign against anyone's rights. In January 2020 he posted a draft joke with photos of himself in women's clothing; critics read it as mocking the trans military ban, while he said it had nothing to do with it and that he doesn't support the ban. He was also accused that week of racist language in a video. The stain is real, but it's a stain, not a pattern of campaigning.
In 2025 he admitted a “brief friendship” with a man whose ex-partner alleged he abused her. Charles said he didn't know about the alleged abuse until later. She alleged he knew earlier, and she shared no evidence for some of her claims, so where you land depends on whom you believe.
The latest was May 2026. Charles posted a video mocking a laid-off Spirit Airlines worker who had asked for donations, calling her lazy and entitled. He deleted it, but it spread, and he lost over 130,000 followers, with Jackie Aina among the critics. He apologised, calling the video “rude, obnoxious, privileged”, though he also said he felt people treated him as a “personal ATM”.