It must be Thursday, because James Charles is embroiled in yet another scandal!
This week’s opponent is the beauty mogul’s former employee, Kelly Rocklein, who’s suing the YouTube star and seeking compensation for wrongful termination, disability discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodation, and failure to pay minimum wage for overtime hours worked.
In the suit, James’ previous creative director claims the now-21-year-old unfairly fired her and didn’t pay her for many hours of overtime. But the claims get even ickier, as Kelly alleges the star would make unreasonable requests — like asking her to shave his bottom. Yes, really!
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The accusations were made in an interview with Insider, where James’ ex-employee explained how her role had little boundaries. She recalled:
“Imagine having to go over and essentially pick James up out of bed, tell him to brush his teeth, tell him, ‘OK, what do you want to eat? OK, someone is coming to do your laundry. OK, I’m going to get your laundry, I guess. OK, time to start filming — you don’t want to film — well, we both know you have to. So please let’s think about it.’”
Yeah, not ideal.
But Rocklein wasn’t just working as James’ stand-in mother: she was allegedly his personal groomer, too. She claims the influencer once asked for help with shaving his bottom to get ready for Coachella, where he was planning to wear a revealing outfit — a task that Rocklein said made her feel “extremely uncomfortable.”
To make matters worse, she claims James wasn’t properly compensating her. Kelly explained she initially requested a six-figure salary with benefits, but was instead offered no benefits and $5,000 a month ($60,000 a year), which came with a potential bonus if she proved herself. She remembered:
“[They said] ‘We’re not going to give you any benefits, but if you work really hard, we’ll give you an annual bonus that will get you there.’”
Eventually, she was given a raise to $6,000 a month — which James later confirmed in a video that mostly dismissed her claims — but Kelly noted that the new wage didn’t account for her additional hours, which frequently came to 80 a week. She mused:
“It was sketchy. Now, with career experience, I know that people will take advantage of you. But at the time, I was like, ‘OK, well, I trust them.’”
She went on to say:
“He was making monstrous money at 18 years old, and I literally couldn’t even afford to pay my full rent. I shared a room with a friend in downtown LA. Everything I was doing with him, I was just in this losing financial game, like, ‘I’ve got to keep working. I’ve got to keep working. My bank account just bounced.’”
Kelly claimed her working relationship with Charles ended on a bad note, sharing that the star terminated her contract after she was medically signed off work. The suit alleged that while he at first seemed supportive over text, James later called and asked for a face-to-face meeting, where he “callously informed her that she was being terminated due to poor performance.”
Oh, and Rocklein alleged that Charles used the N-word in-front of her as well — a claim that was corroborated by another source who spoke to the outlet.
Video: James Admits He Unknowingly Messaged Underage Boys
Charles tried to get ahead of the scandal by posting a video a day before the story was published, calling Kelly’s allegations “absolutely ridiculous, absurd, untrue, defamatory, just the craziest things you could ever imagine.” The internet personality also accused Rocklein of taking her story to the media in an attempt to publicly pressure him into a higher settlement offer. He added:
“My team is like family to me. I love them all so much, and you guys know a lot of them from being in the back of my YouTube videos… I stand behind the fact that they are very, very well taken care of.”
Charles’ manager, Sam Mangan, told Insider that the New York native tried to settle with Rocklein, but wouldn’t meet her “outrageous” demands. He claimed:
“James made a reasonable settlement offer for an employment lawsuit, she [Rocklein] countered with an outrageous amount of money to settle and to retract her public statements, James wasn’t willing to pay her off.”
What do U think will come of this, Perezcious readers? Do you think we’ll ever get to the bottom of this? Ch-ch-check out James’ response video (below) and sound off in the comments.
— James Charles (@jamescharles) May 11, 2021
[Image via Instar/WENN]
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