James Charles Blasts Laid-Off Spirit Airlines Worker, Then Apologizes

James Charles had a very bad weekend of his own making. The 26-year-old makeup influencer is facing fierce online backlash after he posted a profanity-laced video publicly shaming a former Spirit Airlines employee who messaged him a GoFundMe link after losing her job — one of 17,000 people left suddenly unemployed when the budget carrier abruptly shut down all operations last week.

Rather than ignore the message or quietly move on, Charles took to his backup TikTok account and read the woman’s DM aloud in a tone dripping with sarcasm. Her message was simple: “Good morning, James. I know you’ll probably never see this, but if you could just take one minute to read it, it would really mean a lot to me. I’m really struggling right now because Spirit Airlines just filed for bankruptcy and I have lost my job. Here’s a GoFundMe link. Any donations help.”

What followed was a several-minute tirade.

“I’m sure they do, sweetheart. I’m sure they do. You know what else would help you? Getting another job. Yeah, try that,” Charles said in the now-deleted video. “Because in the time that it took you to copy and paste the same f**k ass message to myself — who you don’t follow, by the way — and probably a hundred other influencers and celebrities, you could’ve applied for a hundred other jobs. But you didn’t, ’cause you’re a lazy piece of sh*t, and you’re entitled, and you think that influencers and celebrities should fund your life for you. Why would I ever help you?”

He kept going. “You’re not a fan, you don’t even follow me, you’ve never supported me, this is your first time DMing. And you think that I’m gonna send you money because you lost your job?! Oh my God, welcome to the real world, sweetheart. People lose their jobs every f**king day.” Charles, who is reportedly worth $22 million, also brought up the woman’s race, saying she was “white, pretty, and able-bodied” and therefore “in a much better position than a lot of other people out here.”

The original video was deleted within hours — but the internet, as ever, keeps receipts. Screen recordings spread quickly, and by Friday night the backlash was in full swing, particularly on Reddit’s r/Fauxmoi, where the thread calling out Charles drew thousands of responses.

“This is disgusting,” wrote one user. “Imagine spending years trying to repair your reputation after being a total POS and then recording this,” said another. A third put it bluntly: “He really could’ve just chosen not to have made the video. This is so out of touch. Especially considering his job is being an internet personality. He adds no value to society. Yet he has the nerve to call someone else a piece of sh*t.”

The anger wasn’t just personal — it felt like something bigger. “This is what the rich think about us,” one commenter wrote. “They have lost touch with reality and have no idea how difficult these last few years have been for all of us. They think we’re all lazy pieces of sh*ts for being one paycheck away from homelessness while they spend the equivalent of a normal person’s salary on seamoss and green juice.”

The Doubling Down That Made Everything Worse

If Charles had simply posted a clean apology and sat down, things might have cooled off. Instead, he posted a second video — shirtless, defensive, and doubling down.

“I stand behind what I said, ten toes down,” he declared. He acknowledged being out of touch but framed it almost as a flex, saying he would never “pretend to be poor” to seem relatable. He then launched into extended unsolicited career advice — suggesting the woman should have personalized her DMs to influencers the way a job applicant customizes a cover letter. “Hi sister, James, I’ve been watching your YouTube videos since I was a teenager, you really taught me how to do makeup…” he suggested she could have written. “Probably would have gone a lot further than a generic message.”

He also invoked what can only be described as the Kim Kardashian school of hustle culture, arguing that too many people today “do not have the make-it-work mentality” and that asking for help should be “a last resort.” This, from someone who became a multimillionaire as a teenager making makeup videos — and has never held a traditional job in his life.

That video made the backlash significantly worse. So Charles deleted it too.

The Apology — And What He Actually Said

In the early hours of Saturday, May 9, Charles posted a third video. This one was different in tone — genuinely remorseful, self-aware in a way the previous two weren’t.

“This video was f**king stupid,” he said plainly. “It was rude, it was obnoxious, it was privileged, and most importantly, it was completely f**king unnecessary. When I saw that DM, I absolutely had the choice to ignore it and say absolutely nothing at all and move on with my day, but instead — I couldn’t even tell you why — her message just triggered me, and I decided instead to make a video about it.”

He went on: “I bashed her, and it was obnoxious, and I shamed her for asking for help in a situation where she was clearly really struggling, and this could have been her absolute last resort. I have no idea what was going on in her life, and I should have never assumed that she was just copying and pasting this DM as an easy way out.”

Charles also acknowledged the hypocrisy head-on. “My method of figuring it out and getting by was making makeup videos online. I just happened to get really lucky, and now, years later, I’m in a blessed and privileged position. But as somebody with a platform, it’s my responsibility to humble myself and to never take what I have for granted.”

He said he tried to find the woman’s original message before filming the apology, couldn’t locate it, and extended an open invitation: “If you see this video and you want to get in touch, I would love to apologize to you directly and to help you out a little bit. But if you are not comfortable with that, I totally understand too.”

That apology video has also since been deleted.

The Bigger Picture

Spirit Airlines completed its collapse on May 2, shutting down at 3 a.m. ET after a last-ditch attempt at a federal government bailout fell apart when the carrier’s creditors objected to conditions tied to the Trump administration’s terms. After 34 years in business, the airline — which had been headquartered in Florida — is gone, and the roughly 17,000 people it employed are left to figure out what comes next.

That’s the context Charles was stepping into when he decided to make his original video. And that context is a big part of why it landed so badly. The job market is genuinely brutal right now — a reality that Charles, who began his career as a teenager and has never had to navigate a hiring process, acknowledged in his apology. “I’ve heard so many f**king horror stories online of companies ghosting people, recruiters wasting everybody’s time, people applying for job after job and not hearing back for six months, a year, two years,” he said. “I know that it’s really f**king hard out there.”

This isn’t the first time Charles has had to rebuild trust with the public. In 2021, cosmetics brand Morphe cut ties with him after he admitted to messaging minors. He’s spent years trying to rehabilitate his image — which made the timing of this particular meltdown land even harder for his critics online.

“I genuinely treat this spam page like I’m on FaceTime with you guys,” Charles said in the apology. “I love to laugh and tell you stories and rant and scream at the camera and joke around with y’all, but sometimes I genuinely forget how many people are watching. And it was completely inappropriate to make a joke out of somebody just trying to provide for themselves and their family.”

Whether the woman from Spirit Airlines ever sees that apology — or wants to — is unknown.