The beauty community is enduring one long and extremely dramatic movie right now starring Tati Westbrook and James Charles. Per usual, there are a few supporting cast members that couldn't shy away from the drama in the name of friendship, loyalty, and probably a pinch of messiness. In this movie, Nikita Dragun and Gabriel Zamora are the supporting cast members, but beauty fans aren't quite feeling their performances.
Their latest scenes include a new YouTube video that fans perceive as Dragun (with the help of a Gabriel Zamora appearance) attempting to milk the James Charles drama to sell her makeup.
In case you missed out on the drama, here's a brief recap.
Westbrook denounced her friendship with Charles. She cited his affiliation with Sugar Bear Hair, his alleged fascination with "turning straight guys," and a series of other private things as her reasons why. Her video revelations led to a massive decrease in James Charles' YouTube subscriber count. He went from 16 million to 13 million subscribers in mere days.
In the midst of the drama, fellow beauty influencers Nikita Dragun and Gabriel Zamora made their own statements about the situation.
Gabriel Zamora had some pretty strong criticism for Tati Westbrook. He even went so far as to state that some of her descriptions of their interactions were flat-out lies. He seemed to believe that her concern about James Charles' affiliation with Sugar Bear Hair was minor. As for Nikita Dragun, she made no opinions one way or the other, but did provide screenshots of text messages to back up Charles' claims about his interaction with Sugar Bear Hair during Coachella.
Unfortunately, beauty fans weren't buying the screenshots Dragun provided.
"Heard a situation needed some clarification," she tweeted. "My friend was in an emergency and texted me in the moment… unfortunately since Dragun Beauty used all of our marketing budget on the fantasy, I connected him with sugar bear. nothing shady."
Fans immediately began criticizing the time stamps of the text messages and the dates displayed in the photos.
"How did this all happen within 3 mins. 7:19 James asks for SBH security. 7:20 Nikita asks her sbh person. 7:21 SBH already says yes," a skeptic asked.
As for the dates, one person had another important question. "Girl nobody cares about the vitamins anymore. Also, this doesn’t add up because James did the sugar bear hair ad during week one of Coachella and April 20th was during weekend two and that’s when he just had regular VIP," the person speculated.
Sheesh. Clearly, the texts were meant to provide clarification, but ended up making the situation even messier.
Now fans are side-eyeing Nikita Dragun once again in relation to the James Charles drama.
On the heels of the public fallout between James Charles and Tati Westbrook and Dragun's perceived fail at defending Charles against the backlash, this video dropped. Dragun published it with the thumbnail photo shown here. The thumbnail that features Zamora paired with the title that reads "What Really Happened…" would easily lead fans to believe that Dragun would be speaking publicly about the Coachella incident with James Charles that so many fans still have questions about.
Dragun also wrote an intriguing video description. "This is a very hard video for me to make because it’s a very personal one," Dragun wrote. "There’s been a lot of things said online, and I’m finally sitting down to address them. Please watch until the very end. SHOP DRAGUN BEAUTY."
Fans prepared themselves for a more thorough explanation about James Charles, Coachella, and Sugar Bear Hair. But nope!
GOTCHA! The video turned out to be one of those signature YouTube videos in which the influencer responds to hateful comments about themselves and their brands — with a Gabriel Zamora cameo of course. Dragun talked all about Dragun Beauty, defended her brand's products like the color corrector, and basically made it all about her business.
James Charles wasn't mentioned at all. Neither was Sugar Bear Hair.
Fans rushed her comments with chastising statements.
Dragun's subscribers are disgusted by what they believe is clickbait. Her comments section is full of people accusing her of using James Charles, taking advantage of his drama, and being a bad friend. Some have sworn off following her anymore. Others took the moment as confirmation that Westbrook was right about James Charles needing real friends who hold him accountable without wanting anything in return.
Dragun is being dragged from one side of Twitter to the other.
"@GlamLifeGuru [Tati Westbrook] was right. @Jamescharles does need better people around him. This proves it. Using @gabrielzamora in the thumbnail as well to make it look as though it was to do with James. NEW LOW," one critic wrote.
Critics also believe Dragun is being insensitive to everyone involved.
"Can’t imagine being such trash that I would use something as so topical as a friends drama (which by the way has others trauma wrapped into it) just for views," one fan wrote.
To be fair, it's true that the beef between Tati Westbrook and James Charles turned into something much bigger and more serious than just their friendship ending. Charles is facing accusations of being an alleged "sexual predator." Guys have come out against him, claiming that he tried to sexually manipulate them and harassed them despite the fact that they communicated they were straight.
Westbrook also brought up the point that Charles has a very young fan base, which means millions of kids are watching this mess unfold and taking cues from people they are influenced by. It'd be safe for everyone involved to handle this whole situation delicately.
Fans are also seeing Dragun's distasteful actions as a representation of where the entire beauty community is at the moment.
"It’s truly disgusting to me how people are using this whole James Charles [and] Tati situation to promote themselves. YouTube’s beauty community is so messy. Clearly they’ve forgotten that true beauty comes from the inside cause lately everyone has just been acting ugly," one person wrote.
Hmm… There has been an unusual amount of drama in the beauty community among a number of influencers these days. Will the dust settle soon?
Dragun has yet to address this controversy, but she DID like this tweet about the matter.
"She never said it had anything to do with James. Y’all so madddd. Sis just promoting a great product," one fan wrote. Hmm… OK, sis. It would appear via this liked tweet that Nikita Dragun didn't intend to clickbait anyone to sell her cosmetics brand. That is until you review the other tweet she liked.
Dragun is very aware that she click-baited her fans, as proven by this tweet on her liked page.
"@NikitaDragun just click baited everyone. Well played girl," one fan wrote along with dragon emojis.
This situation is actually a real friendship that's come apart in public. It involves real allegations about sexual coercion and manipulation of the youth. And Dragun liked this tweet that praised her for click-baiting her own fans into believing she would be talking about the situation from an inside perspective.
Welp. There it is.
