James Charles is trending thanks to a leaked video

Being a celebrity of any kind in 2024 is extremely dangerous. We live in an online age where very private things can become public very quickly. James Charles, an influencer and makeup artist who has courted controversy over the years, is now trending for the worst reason possible.

James is trending because a video of him that was probably meant to be private apparently leaked. Here's what we know about the video and why it's suddenly all over the internet.

The video appears to show a man who looks like James committing various explicit acts. It was first posted on Telegram. After it was leaked there, clips of it began circulating on platforms like X, causing James to trend more generally.

The video appears to be about five minutes long and is a recording of James and another man having a video call using the Monkey app.

Although not everyone on Twitter has seen the footage, James quickly became a meme as many reacted to the news that his sex tape had been leaked. Others came to James's defense, pointing out that he is far from the first celebrity to have explicit content leaked online. In this case, it was a web chat, and so it's not even clear if James knew he was being recorded – or if it was even James.

Some users also urged people to stop sharing snippets of the video. Of course, James himself has a complicated and controversial past, which has left many with mixed feelings about the influencer and has led to him no longer being the absolutely dominant figure he once was.

In 2021, James was accused of abusing a minor. At the time, James protested the allegations, saying the person he was accused of abusing had stated he was 18 years old. Following the accusation, James temporarily lost the right to monetize his channel and also lost some previously agreed brand partnerships.

In an interview with Cosmopolitan from 2023 James admitted that he had made a mistake.

“I don't want to sit here and moan and cry because nobody wants to hear that,” he said. “I had to do a lot of thinking. Like, 'Okay, baby, this is your fault. No, you're not a pedophile. No, you're not a damn groomer. No, you're not a sex offender. But you made a big mistake.'”

James has claimed he did not know the age of the boys he had messaged and they claimed they were older. “I have never been more disgusted in my life than when I found out this boy was 16,” he said. “I was horrified, absolutely horrified.”

Now James is faced with another scandal, but one that undoubtedly puts him in a more sympathetic light.