Everything you need to know about Tati Westbrook, the woman who 'cancelled' James Charles.

For those of us who aren’t part of the beauty YouTube community, the names James Charles and Tati Westbrook meant nothing until this weekend, when they were everywhere.

Instagram? Check. Twitter? Check. Mainstream media? Check.

Tati Westbrook and James Charles were inescapable.

Tati Westbrook discusses why she ended her friendship with James Charles. Post continues below video.

A quick recap: On Friday, Tati published a 43-minute video that has attracted almost 30 million views in the days since.

In the down-the-barrel video, titled “Bye Sister”, Tati Westbrook unleashes on James Charles and explains all the reasons she has ended her friendship with her fellow YouTuber. She starts with the fact Charles publicly endorsed a vitamin company, Sleep Vitamins by SugarBearHair, which is a direct competitor of her own beauty brand, Halo Beauty.

(You can get the full run-down on James Charles here, by the way).

The Quicky deep dives on why we hate follow people on social media. Post continues after audio. 

People who previously did not care about makeup, YouTube and especially ‘beauty YouTube’ were suddenly 100 per cent invested in this drama and figuring out who Tati Westbrook was and why she would turn on James Charles after years of mentoring and friendship. We didn’t know why we cared, but we did, so much.

Tati’s video has led James to lose two million followers – across YouTube and Instagram – in a matter of days, whereas Tati has gained triple that in YouTube subscribers, pushing her count to nearly nine million.

Who is Tati Westbrook?

Tati grew up in Seattle Washington and worked as an image consultant – someone who aims to improve the image of a client personally or professionally through appearance, behaviour and communication – and a makeup artist in Los Angeles before beginning her YouTube channel GlamLifeGuru in 2010.

Tati shared her love for makeup and other beauty products, plus shared tutorials, reviews and recommendations which saw her channel grow and soon enough, she was able to turn her YouTube into a full-time job.

Before this weekend's James Charles video, Tati posted beauty product review videos five days a week and averaged 25 million views per month. In total, she's had more than 1.2 BILLION views. It is estimated she earns around US$3600 per day, which adds up to more than US$1.3 million per year just from YouTube ad revenue. And with her recent surge in subscribers, that's only set to increase.

Plus, if she needed any extra coin (she probably doesn't), Tati has her beauty supplement brand, Halo Beauty, to fall back on. Halo Beauty sells supplements that claim to boost hair, skin and nails from the inside out. The brand itself has more than 400,000 Instagram followers.

Tati collaborated with James Charles in many past videos on her channel (and took issue with the fact that she'd regularly invite him as a guest, but he'd rarely invite her to star on his channel).

The pair had been friends since Tati reached out to a 16-year-old James after he started his channel in 2016. She trusted him enough to do her makeup for her 2017 wedding.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

So blessed to have this amazing soul in my life ❤️ @jamescharles Thank you for helping me feel so beautiful on such an important day ... your talent is out of this world, but you as a person are even more impressive & special. I'm keeping you close as a friend forever. Love you so much Sister ???????????? Photo Credit: @kaua_wedding_photography

A post shared by Tati Westbrook (@glamlifeguru) on Jan 13, 2017 at 1:54pm PST

James described Tati and her husband as "parental" figures in his life, in his apology video posted this weekend.

Tati is yet to respond to his video and her social media has been uncharacteristically quiet since all this drama erupted.

In the meantime, we are getting precisely zero work done because there are YouTube videos to watch and Twitter memes to enjoy.

Me: I could care less about James Charles

Tati: BYE SISTER

Me: pic.twitter.com/414J6ijFR4

— Cody (@Thot_Pocket) May 11, 2019

Read More: 

James Charles lost 2 million followers overnight. He's not the first influencer to fall from grace.

In just days, influencer James Charles has lost over 1 million followers. Here's how it happened.

'On Saturday night I spent hours stalking Sally's Instagram. I don't even like Sally.'