Jeffree Star, Beauty YouTube’s preeminent villain known for his makeup line, merch company, and expert ability to cause enough drama to distract from his own alleged racism, has given detractors another reason to hate him. According to ProPublica’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans database, Star took somewhere between $350,000 to $1 million on May 3 for his merch company, Killer Merch, where he sells products for fellow YouTube demons Ninja, Shane Dawson, and sister James Charles. As you may recall, PPP loans are part of the CARES act, created by the federal government to help small businesses keep employees on payroll during the covid-19 pandemic. Star’s Killer Merch company listed 59 employees at the time.
According to Insider, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, Star’s makeup line, also received between $350,000 to $1 million in PPP loans on May 3, listing 21 employees.
Of course, this news shouldn’t really come as any surprise: PPP loan dispersal has been rife with abuse. Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department “charged 57 people with trying to steal more than $175 million from the Paycheck Protection Program.” Many of those cases involved people claiming funds for illegitimate businesses or business owners drawing checks for employees who never saw the cash. Of course, there’s no way to know how Star spent the money—unless, of course, he were to be transparent about it. (Something tells me he won’t.) Let’s not forget this is a man who purchased a $14.6 million dollar house four or five months before accepting up to $2 million in taxpayer money.
But hey, at least Jeffree Star didn’t use the money to buy a Lamborghini, like two 29-year-old men in Florida and Texas did, after acquiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP loans? That is, at least as far as we know.