Jeffree Star Is Done With Everyone Except "Great Friend" Shane Dawson
Jeffree Star reckons he’s done with the YouTube beauty community. He’s moving on from all of that pesky drama that – let’s be honest – he’s had a critical role in creating. But that’s just a minor detail.
Let’s cast our minds back to 2020. (Sorry.) Not only were most of us confined to our homes, the very fabric of YouTube was falling apart. So much drama went down that some genius dubbed them “Dramageddon” (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0). Initially beginning in May 2019, Dramageddon kicked off when Tati Westbrook released an explosive video called ‘Bye Sister’ levelling many, many disturbing accusations against James Charles.
In July 2020, the Internet imploded yet again when Tati released another video, claiming she’d been bullied and gaslit into making ‘Bye Sister’ by none other than Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star. The drama kept on coming, including countless apology and ‘receipts’ videos, chaotic Instagram videos and Twitter threads, plus millions of followers being lost and gained. It seemed that beauty YouTube was dead in the water.
A lot of time has passed since then (the drama, however, absolutely has not stopped), and Jeffree Star has remained relatively quiet about it all – recently making a video stating he no longer wants to “entertain drama”. He’s trying to leave all of that behind, ok?
Shane Dawson and James Charles have since been separately exiled from the internet, after extremely disturbing allegations came to light about both of them.
So the questions are: who is still on speaking terms? Did all parties delete each others’ numbers and do their best to move on with their lives? And most urgently: what is wrong with these people?
In a new interview with Entertainment Tonight, Jeffree Star gives us answers to (most) of these questions.
When asked where his relationships with Tati Westbrook and James Charles are at now, he reveals he has “zero” relationship with either.
“I haven’t seen either of them in probably two years now,” he said.
When asked if that was a good choice for his mental health, Jeffree agreed.
“To kind of step aside from the beauty community and everything that was happening? Girl, absolutely,” he said.
This is all quite wild considering the role he played in “everything that was happening,” but sure, Jeffrey. Whatever.
It’s important to note as well that the issues Jeffree is referring to doesn’t stop at Dramageddon. Other disturbing elements to these stories include sexual and physical abuse accusations against Star of sexual and physical abuse; offers of hush money to silence his alleged victims (Star's lawyers have since denied these claims) and a history of racist and problematic comments. He's also stood by disgraced YouTuber Shane Dawson, who boasts his own history of extremely problematic actions.
When asked about his current relationship with Dawson, Star said they’ve remained “really great friends”.
“He took a really long break and I’m proud of him for doing a lot of self reflection,” Star said.
He’s doing really great, we’re really great friends and always will be.”
What? Gross. Please, for the love of God, may Shane Dawson never be inspired by this (or anything) to return to the Internet.
Watch the full interview below.
Words by Dani Leever, writer and homosexual pop culture enthusiast. Find their words at @danileever or catch their gay DJ drag adventures at @djgaydad.