Since the beginning of the year, several minors have accused James Charles of sexual misconduct.
TOTALLY UNEXPECTED: James Charles exposed for allegedly having inappropriate interaction w/minor. James’s alleged victim said they were 16 in comments, according to sources. In one Snap, James allegedly tells victim “pick me up for some road head.” TikTok has since been deleted.
The Twitter account that posted many of these allegations, @defnoodles, self-identifies as "a mix between The Soup and The Colbert Report." It's a handy resource for receipts after they've expired or have been deleted from social media.
At the end of February, James posted this iOS press release to Twitter about the allegations:
TL;DR: James is saying that he found a man on his explore page, added him on Snapchat — where James allegedly said the minor claimed he was 18 — and began flirting with him. However, once James found out that the minor was 16, he ceased all communication.
However, not even a day after James posted this message to Twitter, it came out that a second minor had messages from James Charles:
WHO COULD’VE SEEN THIS COMING: James Charles accused by 2nd underage boy of allegedly having inappropriate interactions. While the 17-year-old said nothing sexual happened, he alleges James allegedly continued to flirt with him after he told him he was 17.
There was a third man in the mix as well — his age is unclear, but he alleged that he received sexually charged messages from James Charles that he did not want.
A few weeks later, YouTube announced — even though they claimed the aforementioned allegations were not part of their decision — that James Charles will not be returning as the host of the second season of Instant Influencer.
And then, a couple of days ago, new messages came to light between James Charles and a 15-year-old minor:
WHO COULD’VE SEEN THAT COMING: James Charles exposed for allegedly messaging 15-year-old. When James notices that boy shared one of their messages on his story, James snaps, accuses the boy of lying about his age, then blocks him. Boy alleges he never lied about his age.
Which brings us up to present day, April 1, when James uploaded this video "holding [him]self accountable:"
View this video on YouTube
The most recent allegations came out on March 30, and James filmed this video on March 31 but didn't upload until today — in the video, he does point out the unfortunate timing of it all, but I digress.
I won't go DEEP into the 14-minute-long saga because, of course, James Charles has the platform to issue the apology to his near 26 million subscribers, but his alleged victims do not. I will, however, highlight a few pertinent details from the video.
First, James Charles takes full responsibility for his actions, because he's an adult:
Second, he walks us through how he came to the realization that he, and he alone, is the one at fault:
In 2019, my dating life became even more public than it already was when I was called out and labeled as a predator...at the time, I also recognized that I definitely needed to change the way I was going about dating, because clearly something was not working. [Back then], I made a vow...that I would be way more careful moving forward, and that promise was not one that I kept. At the time, I thought the only issues were straight guys and being lied to, but I now realize that it was obviously a much deeper problem.