James Charles — a multimedia internet star — is facing backlash and controversy once again for his words that viewers say are “privileged” or “out of touch.” While James Charles isn’t new to social media controversy such as his “Dramagedon” series involving Tati Westbrook, Patrick Star, and Shane Dawson, or the Kayla Malec drama with Evan Johnson, James Charles finds himself in another social media scandal this May.
On May 7th 2026, James Charles went on his spam account on TikTok and started a rant about a woman who reached out to him with a Go Fund Me link after losing her job due to the spirit airlines shutdown. James — offended by this DM, goes on to set up his camera and berate this woman — saying things like “in the time that it took you to copy and paste the same f***a** message to myself, who you don’t follow by the way, and probably a hundred other influencers and celebrities, you could’ve applied for a hundred other jobs, but you didn’t cause your a lazy piece of s*** and you’re entitled.”
Obviously this is controversial for a numerous amount of reasons, not only for the fact that this is another human being, whether fan or not, but also because James Charles’ job for the last decade has not been a traditional nine-to-five job, rather social media influencing. He then continues in his rant to say things like “ welcome to the real world, sweetheart. People lose their jobs every f****** day and you’re white, pretty and able bodied” and “I’m not helping you, I’m not f****** helping you, all you did was lose your job.” James Charles then goes on to post this video and the comments came in quickly.
Many implied that he was tone deaf, and that he wouldn’t be in the position he was in without the help of his regular working fans. Other influencer came in such as Jackie Asamoah, responding to this information, saying things like “I don’t think James has ever had a real job” and “I just feel like to never have entered the workplace yourself and to say something like this takes an insane amount of privilege” which many have agreed with her take.
In the attempt to save his image, James goes on to issue apology number one, which was taken down almost immediately after because of the additional controversy it sparked. This apology was almost the same script as his initial rant with a taste of apologetic undertones. James goes to say “the reason I made that video yesterday though was a lot of people these days do not have the make it work mentality, they have no desire to actually put in the effort to try to fix a problem and get themselves out of a situation.” Which is actually not the case considering as of May 2026, the US job market is characterized by a “low hire, low fire” mode—a “hiring recession” that feels difficult for job seekers despite stable headline numbers. While the economy is not in a formal recession, the market is described as “stuck.”
Apology number two was issued May 9th, 2026, and was a complete switch up from the first two videos. He completely dismantles his initial views saying things like “this video was f****** stupid, it was rude, it was obnoxious, it was privileged and most importantly, it was completely f****** unnecessary” In this video, James is talking about his initial video rather than his previous apology attempt, which could have the idea that his new apology (apology number two) is insecure or media trained.
Ultimately, James goes on to apologize more sincerely saying things like “when I saw that DM, I absolutely had the choice to ignore it” and “I shamed her for asking for help in a situation where she was clearly really struggling and this could have been her absolute last resort,” which is a significantly suspicious apology to issue after expressing your complete emotions and standing on your opinion in the first apology. Either way, it is up in the air of whether or not he means his sincerity.
What do you guys think? Is he sincere or is he trying to save himself once again?
