Beauty influencer Kameron Lester has called out makeup mogul Jeffree Star and YouTuber Shane Dawson for his “uncomfortable” experience working for Jeffree Star Cosmetics, where he was allegedly treated as the group’s “token black kid.”
Last week, Lester took to Instagram Live to open up about his experience with the Cremated makeup artist and “fear and manipulation within the beauty community.” As he explained in the near 30-minute-long video, when he worked with Star, he felt tokenised and like his career was not supported by the infamous gothic beauty YouTuber.
“I just felt like it was never a friendship, it was never a friendship in the beginning to start with, it was always just something like I was kind of like the token black kid,” said Lester, before explaining a moment where Star asked about his relationship with on-and-off beauty rival James Charles.
“I was uncomfortable. There [were] people around me, and he was so blunt—just out of nowhere asked me, ‘do you like James?’ James helped me with my career when I first got into the beauty space and told my HIV story—like, he’s been very supportive of me.”
Moments later, after Lester told Star he didn’t have a problem with Charles, Star allegedly said, “Well, you don’t f**king owe him forever.” The very next day, Lester said he witnessed Shane Dawson, who was working on a documentary series on Jeffree Star at the time, talk badly about Charles, before he was replaced on the project by one of Star’s ex-best friends.
“I remember Shane Dawson called and he was going off about James Charles and just like cursing James out,” Lester explained. “And I was just kind of taken back, because I’ve never seen Shane Dawson like that and he was just going in on James. From there, I knew Shane Dawson wasn’t really the person he was perceived [to be] online.”
“I felt like he was trying to send the message in some way that I was replaceable as a Black boy. I felt like this was a game. Even with Shane Dawson posting me on his platform, I was grateful. But I felt like it was kind of to silence me to be like, ‘We’re gonna keep giving you breadcrumbs and hanging you by a string and manipulating you so you can stay quiet.’ I always felt silenced.”
Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson have yet to respond to Lester’s comments. You can watch Kameron Lester’s Instagram Live for the full story below.
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