James Charles is apologizing after being calling a woman who allegedly lost her job at Spirit Airlines “lazy” for sending him a Gofundme link.
The 26-year-old influencer was immediately met with a lot of backlash after he ranted over a message he received from a woman who allegedly got laid off by Spirit Airlines 17,000 people lost their jobs last week when budget airline Spirit shut down all operations.
One of those people sent a message to James with a GoFundMe link, asking for a donation after allegedly losing her job. James went on his backup TikTok account to share a video ranting about the message, calling the woman a “lazy piece of s–t” among other things.
In a follow-up video on Saturday (May 9), amid much criticism, James posted an apology video.
“Yesterday morning I posted a video on this account talking about how a woman had lost her job at Spirit Airlines and she sent me a message with a Gofundme link asking me to donate,” he began.
“And the video is basically me yelling at the camera, being super upset and frustrated because this person had never followed me, never supported me before. And it was clear that she had basically copied and pasted this DM to every influencer and celebrity she possibly could asking for a handout. And I called her lazy, I said she was stupid, and I said she should have spent the time that she spent copying and pasting the message applying for jobs instead.”
This video was f–king stupid. It was rude, it was obnoxious, it was privileged, and most importantly, it was completely f–king unnecessary. When I saw that DM, I absolutely had the choice to ignore it and say absolutely nothing at all and move on with my day, but instead, I couldn’t even tell you why. Her message just triggered me, and I decided instead to make a video about it. And I bashed her, and it was obnoxious, and I shamed her for asking for help in a situation where she was clearly really struggling and this could have been her absolute last resort.
“I have no idea what was going on in her life, and I should have never assumed that she was just copying and pasting this DM as an easy way out. I don’t know. I just don’t know. My intention behind making this video in the first place was I get a lot of messages like this every single day. And for me personally, it definitely sucks to receive messages from people that don’t follow you and don’t support you, treating you like a personal ATM or bank account,” he continued.
“But what I’m sure sucks even f–king more is not knowing where your next paycheck is coming from and not being sure whether or not you’re gonna be able to put food on the table for yourself and your family. So it really doesn’t matter what my intentions were behind making the video because it came across as super f–king privileged and, like, I was basically shaming anybody that’s unemployed for not trying hard enough to get a job.
I feel awful because that wasn’t my intention, and it really hurt a lot of people. And I know that it’s not that easy. I know that the job market f–king sucks right now. I have friends that are looking for jobs. I have my own employees that I try my best to take care of. I’ve heard so many f-king horror stories online of companies ghosting people, recruiters wasting everybody’s time, people applying for job after job and not hearing back for six months, a year, two years. I know that it’s really f–king hard out there and that most people are just doing their best and trying their best to figure it out and to make it by. And if this person happened to choose sending out Gofundme links as their method of trying to make it by, who am I to judge? Especially when you consider the fact that my method of figuring it out and getting by was making makeup videos online.
“I just happened to get really lucky, and now, years later, I’m in a blessed and privileged position. But as somebody with a platform, it’s my responsibility to humble myself and to never take what I have for granted. And when I made that video today, that is exactly what I did. I was speaking from a very privileged, obnoxious, ignorant standpoint. And for anybody that saw that video and was disappointed or upset with what I said, I am super sorry, especially to the woman from Spirit Airlines. I did try to look for her message earlier before making this video, and I couldn’t find it. If you see this video and you want to get in touch, I would love to apologize to you directly and to help you out a little bit. But if you are not comfortable with that, I totally understand, too,” James added.
I really appreciate anybody that sent me a message or left a comment about this video today letting me know how insensitive it was. I really needed to hear that, and I really need to think twice before I hit record and just start yapping on this account. I genuinely treat this spam page like I’m on Facetime with you guys. I love to laugh and tell you stories and rant and scream at the camera and joke around with y’all, but sometimes I genuinely forget how many people are watching. And it was completely inappropriate to make a joke out of somebody just trying to provide for themselves and their family. That’s definitely my bad.
Find out what he said in his original video that caused so much controversy.
The post James Charles Apologizes After Calling Laid Off Spirit Airlines Employee ‘Lazy’ appeared first on Just Jared – Celebrity News and Gossip | Entertainment.
