James Charles

American makeup guru James Charles courted both fame and controversy with his extremely popular Internet videos. Born in Bethlehem, New York, he began gaining attention as a teenager with his YouTube channel that offered makeup advice in 2015. He soon became a national figure at 17 when CoverGirl tabbed him to be its first male spokesperson in 2016. His online popularity soared and at one point, his channel had more than 16 million subscribers. His online presence, though, also came with controversy. He was criticized for comments that were thought to be insensitive to the transgender community. Having represented himself as being openly gay, he also caught followers off-guard in 2019 when he stated in an interview that his sexuality was more fluid. He also became involved in a spat with fellow Internet personality Tati Westbrook. A particularly damning video posted by Westbrook led to Charles losing more than 1 million subscribers in under 24 hours in May of 2019. Despite the controversies, Time magazine still named the web star one of its "25 Most Influential People on the Internet" in 2019.