The Tati Westbrook’s tear-down of Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson
The internet was able to sense a storm was brewing in the beauty guru side of YouTube, and it turns out the storm is a full-blown hurricane. Tati Westbrook just dropped a forty-minute long video (with a lot of legally approved scripts) calling out Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star.
Westbrook’s video is emotional, long, and a tell-all about her career, James Charles’s career, and the toxicity she experienced at the hands of Shane Dawson & Jeffree Star. It’s a lot to take in, and a long, long video which aims to clear her name and perhaps take down some others. So, we watched the video and summarized it here for you.
Apology to James Charles
Tati Westbrook spends a large portion of the beginning of her video apologizing to James Charles for the fallout they had last year. She describes how she knew Charles before he became ridiculously popular on YouTube, and how she adores him. She then says she did become worried about him and his mental health as he became more popular & thought he was becoming entitled.
She also declares that her video from last year (now private) was not about vitamins, and she was not the one who accused Charles of being a predator or a menace to society. (This was Jeffree Star.) She proceeds to tell Charles, who apparently wanted to make this video with her, that she regrets making the year old video & that she was coerced into making it by Shane Dawson & Jeffree Star who “fed” her “poisonous lies”.
She admits to Charles she should have aired her personal grievances in person, not online.
About Jeffree Star
Tati Westbrook also spends a large chunk of the video calling out Jeffree Star. While most of it is vague (likely for legal reasons) and centers around how she tried to influence Star to be a better person & view himself as a role model, she does drop tid bits here and there.
She recounts how she continued to remain in Star’s life because she thought she could be a positive influence for Star, and get him involved with a charity she cares about. Despite a number of red flags and snarky comments about other people she continued to remain in contact with him. Westbrook also says Star repeatedly mentioned having “so much dirt” on other influencers and brands. She believes he’s blackmailing people and warns her community we will “go off”.
Shockingly, Westbrook says “we need to be ready to forgive him”, seemingly referring to Jeffree Star. She says if we don’t then the drama will never stop. She says to prepare not to cancel everyone – a bold statement to the internet these days. She then breaks down saying she was blind & wants nothing to do with this anymore after saying it’s wrong to trap people into saying things they wouldn’t usually.
She then says in 2019 Jeffree Star’s new obsession appeared to be bad mouthing James Charles at every single possible opportunity & then introduced her to Shane Dawson claiming Westbrook was Dawson’s favorite beauty YouTuber.
About Shane Dawson
Tati Westbrook then recounts her first meeting with Shane Dawson saying she opened up to him about personal topics including her own sexual assault account, as well as a prolonged conversation about religion where Dawson seems to praise her and her kindness.
She then says Dawson regaled her with numerous stories about horrible things James Charles had done to people after telling Westbrook he had wanted her in his next documentary, but it was changing too rapidly due to the Charles information. According to Westbrook Dawson would then continue to give her updates on new allegations about Charles after this meeting. Westbrook then says she was gaslit.
Despite dismissal from Dawson earlier this week that he had nothing to do with Westbrook’s video from last year, she says that Shane Dawson offered to help her edit the video, title it, and make a thumbnail. Westbrook then says Dawson later invited her to his home to document the fallout, but Westbrook declined.
Westbrook’s reaction
Tati Westbrook then describes how both her mental and physical health were incredibly badly affected by the events for almost all of 2019. She says she lost weight, and felt unsafe in her Los Angeles home so she scheduled a number of videos to be published on her channel before leaving the house.
She also admits she was planning on trying to become pregnant in 2019, but was unable to do so because she was so physically unwell because of the events. She has also moved house completely as a precaution.
She then goes on to lay out her own theories (which are somewhat conspiratorial in nature) on Dawson and Star’s motives – though she has no proof, and admits she’s going to try and find some. Westbrook also warns she’s able to move forward with legal actions.
The responses
Dawson went live on Instagram in an absolute frenzy. He was seemingly unable to form a full sentence and makes frequent exclamations while Westbrook’s video played in the background on his television. She does say she’s lying and faking her tears. Shane Dawson turns around and calls Tati Westbrook the manipulative person.
He also seemingly dismisses Westbrook’s admission about being sexually assaulted by exclaiming, “I’ve been molested!” As if this somehow means he can’t ever hurt another person.
Shane Dawson freaking over Tati’s new video on IG Live pic.twitter.com/k1fC5KTzpT
— ingrid (@weathxrgirl) June 30, 2020
At one point during the Instagram live you could even hear Dawson’s fiancé tell Dawson to get off the phone. (We’re assuming it was a fear of saying something which could create legal trouble – a very valid fear for anyone currently part of this mess.)
Shane Dawson also tweeted, and then deleted, a post in all caps declaring everything lies and how he is losing his mind.
Ryland Adams, Dawson’s fiancé, then took to twitter in a multi-tweet thread claiming Tati Westbrook was the mastermind manipulator who took advantage of Shane Dawson instead of the other way around.
What has fans surprised is that Jeffree Star has been oddly silent. As of writing this, his last tweet was five days ago and has not addressed any of the current drama. Fans are keeping an eye on his Snapchat stories for ranting, something he’s commonly known to do, but hasn’t done in regard to the new Westbrook video.
James Charles hasn’t addressed any of the drama yet either.
YouTube on the other hand has officially suspended all monetization on Shane Dawson’s YouTube channel – a shocking move considering Dawson is one of their gigantic earners. This was done in response to old racist works Dawson has created and multiple jokes about pedophilia.
Conclusion
The strangest thing to us about the Westbrook video is she opened it by saying there needed to be more love and more peacemakers before embarking on a long winded video which tore down two fellow YouTubers.
At the moment there’s really no way for anyone on the outside to know the truth, all we have is a highly dramatic game of he said she said happening. All parties who have spoken out today have cried and pointed fingers.
It will be interesting to see who the court of public opinion sides with in the end, but right now it appears to be Westbrook. Despite getting rude messages online last year from all the drama, she was the one who gained the most subscribers from the fallout.