This is Thomas Halbert. For those of you who don't spend every waking moment watching makeup tutorials on YouTube (guilty), he's an upcoming beauty influencer with a following in the hundreds of thousands.
He's gotten himself into trouble on the internet a few times, but this weekend his placement in the ranking of drama-prone YouTubers skyrocketed to the top after uploading a video that one Jeffree Star did not take kindly to.
This weekend, Halbert uploaded a video titled "Racism, Sexism, and Silence," in which he recalls visiting an unnamed YouTuber's house, asking that YouTuber about their previous racism, to which they allegedly responded, "Well, we've all used the N word."
The story gets worse from there. Halbert claims a member of this YouTuber's team casually used a racial slur against Mexicans in front of him too.
"I'm not going to say that person's name because we all know who it is," he said.
Spoiler alert: It's Jeffree Star. Duh.
Star had no problem coming right out and saying that Halbert's video was about him.
He confirmed that Halbert did, indeed, visit his home recently to "fix all our beef and put our past issued behind us."
"We touched on certain subjects, he asked me candid questions about things I had said in the past, racism, my ex friends etc. I answered every question truthfully."
He claims Halbert, at the time, was texting Star's responses to his greatest nemeses and ex–best friends, Laura Lee and Manny Gutierrez, the entire time.
Star shared text messages between him and Halbert that he said occurred immediately after Star discovered he was texting Lee and Gutierrez, in which Halbert was apologetic.
He then goes on to recount a tale about a business partnership attempt between Star and Halbert that occurred just after the meetup at Star's house, before he knew Halbert had been communicating with Lee and Gutierrez.
"After the meeting was over, my team and I decided we didn't want to do business with him."
Halbert also allegedly asked to film videos with Star, but was denied — because that was the point at which Star realized Halbert had been texting Star's ex-friends.
"He uploaded a video blatantly lying, saying I (he didn't have the guts to say my name) said something 'racist' in front of him, KNOWING it will stir and make a lot of people question me again because of my past," he continued.
"For anyone who hates drama and tea, this isn't 'TEA' and entertainment. This is my actual LIFE and I will NEVER allow some punk bitch to lie on my name and discredit me because he got rejected."
"After I rejected you wanting to film videos ... and after I declined doing business with you, I'm the villain? NOT TODAY SWEETIE."
He concluded by sharing a recorded voice memo from Halbert, in which he apologizes again about the whole MannyMUA thing and makes some ... interesting insults.
"Listen to a glimpse of what I’ve been dealing with behind closed doors from Thomas. Imagine continuously trying to mention my ex-friends, for personal gain … Disgusting," Star wrote.
And the cherry on top of the cake? He posted one last photo of a marker board with a message about toxic people and "misinformation."
Halbert, on the other hand, defended himself ... to a point.
He posted a long apology note to his followers, in which he glosses over his own "too faced" [sic] and "shady" actions toward other YouTubers, but says that the claims he made against Star were 100% true.
He clarifies that Halbert left Star that frazzled voice memo after discovering that Gutierrez has allegedly been badmouthing Halbert to other influencers and brands.
He also claimed Star has a compilation video of other influencers that he uses as blackmail to keep them quiet — that's what Halbert felt the need to text Lee and Gutierrez about. WHAT.
Halbert reposted the same text messages Star used to discredit Halbert, but gave them new context: "These messages were sent after Jeffree found out I told Manny about the video he put together to blackmail him and other influencers," he wrote.
He also posted a long note that he was planning on sending to Gutierrez at the time but never did.
Then he reposted Star's marker board message with the caption, "This is what happens when someone with more influence wants to stomp out your truth."
"To be quite honest this is probably the dumbest drama i’ve ever been in. This is beyond immature and annoying," he finished.
"I’ve never seen so many people defend racial slurs in my life. I said what i said. I don’t care what happens."
So, long story short: Halbert's been acting as a vessel for Star/Gutierrez drama, Star figured it out, more (likely warranted) racism claims were made, and now we're exhausted.
This shit never ends.
