James Charles Is Trending Online for the Reason You Never Want to Be Trending

Being a celebrity of any sort in 2024 is hugely perilous. We live in an online age when very private things can become hugely public very quickly. James Charles, an influencer and makeup artist who has faced occasional controversies over the years, is now trending for the worst possible reason.

James is trending because of what appears to be a leaked video of him that was likely intended to be private. Here's what we know about the video and why it's suddenly all over the internet.

The video appears to show a man who looks like James engaged in various explicit acts, and it was first leaked on Telegram. After it was leaked there, clips of it began to circulate on platforms like X, leading to James trending more generally.

The video is apparently approximately five minutes long, and is a recorded video of James and another man engaged in a video call over the Monkey app.

Although not everyone on Twitter has even seen the footage, James quickly became a meme as many reacted to the news that he had a leaked sex tape. Others came to James's defense, pointing out that he is far from the first celebrity to have had explicit content leaked online. In this case, because it was a webchat, it's not even clear if James knew he was being recorded — or if it even is actually James.

Some users have also encouraged people to stop sharing clips from the video. Of course, James has a complicated and controversial history of his own that has left many with complex feelings about the influencer and has meant that he is no longer the utterly dominant figure that he once was.

In 2021, James faced allegations that he was grooming a minor. At the time, James protested the allegations, saying that the person he was accused of grooming said that he was 18. James temporarily lost the right to monetize his channel in the aftermath of the allegation, and also lost some previously agreed to brand partnerships.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan from 2023, James admitted that he had made a mistake.

“I don’t want to sit here and f--king mope and whine and cry, because nobody wants to hear it,” he said “I had to do a lot of thinking. Like, ‘OK, babe, this is your fault. No, you’re not a pedophile. No, you’re not a f--king groomer. No, you’re not a predator. But you made a big mistake.’”

James has maintained that he did not know the ages of the boys he was messaging, and that they claimed they were over age. “I’ve never been more disgusted in my life than when I found out that that kid was 16 years old,” he said. “I was mortified, absolutely mortified.”

Now, James is facing another scandal, although this one undoubtedly paints him in a more sympathetic light.