James Charles finally addresses grooming accusations: \u201cI\u2019m desperate\u201d YouTube: James CharlesOn April 1, beauty YouTuber James Charles finally addressed the multiple allegations that have surfaced online in recent weeks accusing him of inappropriate behavior and \u201cgrooming\u201d 16-year-olds. In his 14-minute upload titled \u201cholding myself accountable,\u201d the 21-year-old spoke out about two accusations in particular which accused the YouTube star of messaging 16-year-olds on Snapchat, despite knowing their age. He started off by apologizing to his family, friends, and fans, calling the situation \u201creally, really embarrassing,\u201d before saying that he \u201cfully understands\u201d his actions and how they were \u201cwrong.\u201d \u201cWithin the past couple of weeks, two different people \u2013 both under the age of 18 \u2013 have recently come forwards and said that they had inappropriate messages from me on social media,\u201d the YouTube star began. \u201cIn both of these cases, I added these people on Snapchat, asked how old they were right away, was told that they were 18, believed them and engaged in flirty conversation, and later on found out that they were actually 16.\u201d Charles then claimed he blocked both of the people involved upon finding out their actual age. \u201cWhen I saw them both making videos about it and going viral, my immediate reaction, completely honestly, was to be really upset\u2026 The screenshots and the receipts really don\u2019t matter because I f**ked up.\u201d \u201cThese conversations should have never happened,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere is no excuse for it, I take full responsibility for that\u2026 In doing the research myself, both of these people\u2019s social media profiles would have revealed their true ages and these conversations would have never happened in the first place\u2026 To the guys involved in the situation, I want to say I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m sorry that I added you, I\u2019m sorry that I flirted with you, and I\u2019m REALLY sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable. It\u2019s completely unacceptable. I was being reckless.\u201d James went on to explain that he\u2019d reflected on why this happened in the first place, and said, \u201cIt sucks and it is ridiculously embarrassing to admit this, but I have to\u2026 I\u2019m desperate. I do understand that with these videos coming to light, it\u2019s really looking like I\u2019m actively searching for younger people to be in a relationship with\u2026 That is absolutely not the case.\u201d \u201cThe idea of actually being in a relationship became so important to me that I was willing to trust too quickly, miss out on red flags, and most importantly not take the precautionary measures that really anybody, but especially somebody with a public platform, should be taking before talking to anybody.\u201d The YouTuber then addressed the 2019 scandal with fellow influencer Tati Westbrook in which she released a video accusing him of predatory behavior against straight men. He revealed that after he uploaded his \u201cNo More Lies\u201d apology video, he hadn\u2019t kept his promise to \u201cbe more careful moving forward\u201d when it came to his dating life. \u201cAs time progressed, my desire for a relationship never really went away, and I slowly started ignoring red flags again, and also ignoring my friends and the important people around me that warned me that I was going to get hurt,\u201d he said. \u201cTo them, I also feel like I owe an apology because I should have listened and I feel like if I did, we probably wouldn\u2019t be here today.\u201d Charles revealed that he has been talking to professionals about his behavior so that he could \u201chold myself accountable\u201d for the situation, and admitted that he didn\u2019t realize that there was a \u201cpower imbalance\u201d when it came to fans reaching out to him. James ended his video by apologizing to those involved and promising to change his behavior, and said he was embarrassed and ashamed by everything that went on. \u201cI will be way more careful moving forward with every single person that I speak to\u2026 I didn\u2019t understand how a situation like this could affect the people involved but now I do. To the victims, I am so sorry, and I promise that something like this will never happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James Charles finally addresses grooming accusations: \u201cI\u2019m desperate\u201d YouTube: James CharlesOn April 1, beauty YouTuber James Charles finally addressed the multiple allegations that have surfaced online in recent weeks accusing him of inappropriate behavior and \u201cgrooming\u201d 16-year-olds. In his 14-minute upload titled \u201cholding myself accountable,\u201d the 21-year-old spoke out about two accusations in particular which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}