Sorry to Say That This Jeffree Star Apology Is Not Really 'Doing What's Right'
Latest
Not that anyone should be surprised by anything the beauty vloggers say these days, but Jeffree Star is really on one. Over the weekend, Star put out a video apologizing to James Charles for the whole Tati Westbrook dustup—I cannot be bothered to unpack all of that right now, but if you need a refresher, my colleague Maria Sherman has a good rundown—and while that’s all well and fine I guess, Star also decided this was a good time to pull things like Breonna Taylor’s murder and violence against Black trans women into beauty vlogger drama, even though Star and his pal Shane Dawson have a teensy little problem with things like blackface and Nazi iconography. Huh!
Star addressed the “situation” with Charles and Westbrook in a 10-plus minute YouTube video titled “Doing the Right Thing,” posting it on Saturday with the comments off. (Probably smart!) He apologized to Charles for “getting caught up in the hype,” and hinted at some of his past bad behavior.
“When you accept that you are the problem, you become the solution,” Star said, “I’m fully admitting my flaws and I’m hoping people can learn from me.” OK, great!
And then…
“Breonna Taylor still has no justice. Black trans women are being murdered every day and the news is silent. Elijah McClain has no justice, and the countless other people who are murdered every single day while everybody goes about their business like nothing’s happening,” Star said, seemingly out of nowhere. “And I think that drama and the beauty world, which I have definitely been a part of, it all has to stop.”
It is true that Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain have no justice, and it’s true that Black trans women are being murdered regularly. But for Star to use Black death in an “apology” about beauty vlogging drama, particularly when Star has Black influencers cutting ties with him over apparent racism (not to mention the aforementioned Nazi iconography, though Star claims that’s all in “the past,” OK), well…it’s gross.
Twitter thinks it’s gross, too, according to Buzzfeed.
I’m sure this is not the last we’ll hear from Star, comments or no comments, so…stay tuned, I suppose.