It’s been one full year since Tati Westbrook has shown up online, and today the beauty guru is finally back.
Regarded as one of the most successful YouTube creators on the platform, Tati retreated from the internet in June 2020 after releasing a follow-up video to her bombshell ‘BYE SISTER…‘ which famously led to the mass cancellation of James Charles in 2019. Her since-deleted sequel video accused YouTube personalities Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson of being the puppet-masters behind attempting to take down James Charles’ career— claiming she was manipulated and gaslit into believing lies about the then 19-year-old James and coerced into making her initial video.
Now, the 39-year-old Halo Beauty founder has now returned to the internet with a 19-minute video explaining where she’s been this year and why she left.
She has fully distanced herself from everyone in the beauty community
Tati starts by explaining that she has not spoken to anyone in the beauty community since breaking her silence in June 2020. She claims she needed to step away from the YouTube space in order to move forward, as she was going through a very challenging time personally when she made that video.
She also clarifies that there has been “no litigation, no cease and desist, nothing either way” between herself and the parties named in her last video, addressing speculation that Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson took legal action against Tati following her allegations against them.
Tati implied in her previous video that lawyers were involved in the fallout of ‘BYE SISTER…’— a rumour she denies now.
She’s been harassed, threatened, and blackmailed
“During that time, I was getting the most intense harassment,” she says of summer and autumn 2020. “I’m talking death threats that were explicit in detail, people saying they were going to hunt me down, they knew where I was. I was getting emails, some of the most disturbing of me being monitored in the privacy of my own home through technology, through my Smart TV, being blackmailed if I didn’t pay up.”
Tati says she planned to come back to her channel sooner, but these threats forced her to retreat.
Tati addresses the Halo Beauty lawsuit with her business partner
Just as she was ready to start making videos again, Tati says she was “blindsided” with a lawsuit from her Halo Beauty business partner, Clark Swanson, who is suing her for $30 million. She also claims that Swanson has been feeding “disparaging” information about Tati, her husband, and her family to drama channels.
ICYMI, Swanson is allegedly suing Tati and her husband James Westbrook for launching Tati Beauty— Tati’s makeup brand which launched in late 2019 with her Textured Neutrals Vol 1 palette followed by the controversial Blendiful sponge.
Swanson, who is apparently James Westbrook’s longtime colleague and friend, claims that he and the Westbrooks initially had a 50/50 split of Halo Beauty. However, they eventually approached him with a deal for two-thirds of the business and in exchange, Tati would commit to launching her cosmetics line under the Halo Beauty umbrella. This agreement was allegedly drawn up in their contract.
When Halo Beauty was preparing to launch, Swanson claims that Tati sat down with YouTube’s biggest gurus— Jeffree Star, Manny MUA, Laura Lee, and James Charles— and asked them not to promote SugarBearHair. Swanson alleges Tati “touted her clique” as sources of promotion for Halo Beauty and used this influence to convince Swanson to give up equity in the business.
Fast forward a year, and Swanson alleges that the Westbrooks cut a separate deal with a cosmetics manufacturer and launched Tati Beauty without him.
Tati’s Textured Neutrals Vol 1 palette is estimated to have made $16 million USD.
The lawsuit also claims James Westbrook liquidated “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of Halo Beauty assets on October 10th, 2020 when the Westbrooks learned of the lawsuit to decrease the company’s value.
She has sold her L.A. home and downsized
Off the back of the lawsuit, Tati says they sold their L.A. home, she moved out of her Seattle condo, and they have downsized “in a major way” because “litigation is expensive.”
“I miss my studio in L.A. so much, but I also have had a huge awakening this past year that material items are not the most important thing, my integrity is more important,” she says of her plans to “go the distance” with the lawsuit.
She almost got divorced
Tati then drops a major bombshell that she and James “almost got divorced” over the stress of this year. She reveals the couple— who have been together for over a decade— were separated during the holidays and James was living at his own place.
“We had a crack in our marriage with everything going on, if you can only imagine,” she says. “The stuff being said about James, about myself, about our character, what we deserve, what we don’t deserve… just that intensity, behind the scenes felt even more intense and was heartbreaking.”
Thankfully, they have since reunited and are back together, however, Tati claims she is no longer wearing her wedding ring because she accidentally donated it.
She is not pregnant, nor did she have a baby
Despite rumours that Tati took the year off to start her long-desired family, Tati says that is not the case.
The makeup artist did not address the status of her namesake makeup brand Tati Beauty, but claims she eventually will in a separate video.
Regardless of the drama surrounding Tati’s hiatus, fans and followers are ecstatic to see the creator return to her channel and start making beauty content again.