James Charles Faces Backlash After Doubling Down on TikTok Rant at Laid-Off Spirit Airlines Worker

James Charles is facing backlash after a TikTok rant aimed at a laid-off airline worker spiraled, with multiple deleted videos and a public apology.

The beauty influencer, 26, initially posted a video on May 8 responding to a message from a woman who said she lost her job when Spirit Airlines shut down and asked him to donate to her GoFundMe.

In the now-deleted clip, Charles called her a “lazy piece of s***” and “entitled,” adding, “People lose their jobs every f***ing day… Welcome to the real world.”

“Tone-deaf moments travel fast because audiences are no longer reacting just to what was said — they’re reacting to the power imbalance underneath it,” said crisis and reputation strategist Robbie Vorhaus. “In this case, people didn’t see an influencer criticizing a stranger. They saw a wealthy public figure publicly mocking someone who had just lost their livelihood.”

Charles deleted the original video, but doubled down in a followup video, admitting his language may have been “harsh” but that he still stood behind his message “10 toes down,” arguing that some people lack a “make-it-work mentality.”

That video was also deleted.

Later that same day, Charles posted a third video, calling his original comments “rude,” “obnoxious,” “privileged,” and “completely f***ing unnecessary.”

“I bashed her, and it was obnoxious,” he said, adding that the video “came across as super f***ing privileged” and like he was “basically shaming anybody that's unemployed for not trying hard enough to get a job.”

He also acknowledged that he could have simply ignored the message instead of posting about it, saying he felt “awful” about how the situation unfolded.

“The wealth gap is not an abstract concept anymore. It is something people are living with daily,” said Amore Philip, founder of Apples and Oranges Public Relations. “He is handing a frustrated audience a face to put on everything they are angry about. That clip was never going to stay quiet.”

According to Philip, a “credible” apology “is not shirtless on TikTok. It is not three videos in 48 hours with two of them deleted.”

“A credible apology has three things: it names the specific harm, it takes full responsibility without explaining away the original intent, and it is followed by a concrete action,” she added.

“The public can forgive mistakes surprisingly quickly,” Vorhaus said. “What they struggle to forgive is emotional detachment, defensiveness, or apologies that feel optimized for reputation repair rather than genuine accountability.”

He noted that audiences are increasingly focused on perceived character rather than isolated mistakes.

“One apology video does not repair class insensitivity,” Philip said. “What repair actually requires is a sustained shift in how you show up publicly over time.”