Who is Tati Westbrook?
Tatiana Aleksandra Westbrook is a beauty vlogger operating mainly on YouTube. She is also active on Instagram and is the CEO of the Halo Beauty company. Tati started appearing on YouTube already in 2010 under the nickname GlamLifeGuru. Which she shortly after renamed Tati. As long as she appears on YouTube, she is now known for being one of the first-ever creators who helped to enlarge and popularize the internet beauty industry.
The career of Tati
In her early years, Tati made countless makeup tutorials and reviews of different makeup companies. Tati herself may be connected to the beginning of, now quite a common trend, when makeup companies send their newest products to said influencers to review. Of course, this is quite a standard procedure in other industries, but beauty vlogging became more popular until the first decade of 2000, and Tati was an essential part of all of that.
Although she wasn't exactly skilled in editing videos, her channel became popular quickly. One of the reasons was Tati's approach to makeup videos. Throughout the longer videos, fans listened to Tati's stories from her personal life, her past as an image consultant, and lastly, her goals and dreams. These stories made her videos more personal, and soon her fans began to see her more as their good friend or even older sister. In 2017 Tati shared her whole wedding experience when she married James Westbrook. This experience was presented through multiple videos: dress shopping, her wedding makeup and highlights of the wedding day itself.
Companies founded by Tati
As we mentioned, Tati's dream, one of the biggest ones, was, as she personally stated, to create her own company. And she succeeded twice. In 2018 she founded Halo Beauty, which is still an operating company making vitamin supplements. These vitamins are supposed to improve skin, support hair growth, and harden nails. Tati co-founded said company with her husband James and their business partner Clark Swanson.
Their cooperation with Clark, unfortunately, didn't end well. In October 2020, he filed a lawsuit against both of them, claiming that they were neglecting their shared company and that they also committed fraud. His concern seemed to be a financial struggle for the whole company and a noticeable decrease in sales. Eventually, Clark agreed to continue sharing the company, with him owning 50%. But later, they agreed to divide it by thirds, as James, Tati's husband, is also a co-founder.
Because fans are more likely to buy products from their internet idols, Tati also founded a beauty brand called Tati Beauty in 2019. The brand was a huge success. Buyers were happy with the quality, and some collaborations also happened. Yet already in march of 2020, Tati was forced to shut down the whole thing. In an explanatory video, she stated that Covid 19 slowed everything, sales went down, and on top of that, there was the ongoing lawsuit. All of these unfortunate things made running Tati Beauty more expensive and she was unable to continue. Despite all of this, Tati said it was an amazing experience, and she doesn't regret a thing.
Tati's public controversy
Another, much more public controversy Tati was part of included her friend at the time and a fellow beauty vlogger James Charles. Especially their former relationship made the whole situation so unexpected and hard to understand. As mentioned, Tati and James were close friends and coworkers and often appeared in each other's videos. For example, Tati chose James to create her wedding makeup; that's how close they were. Tati could be seen as a role model for Charles, as she's been in the industry much longer.
The whole controversy started in 2019, a year after the introduction of Halo beauty, while James was attending Coachella. On the first day of Coachella, he posted an Instagram story where he was clearly promoting hair-growing supplements called Sugar Bear Hair. While Halo beauty was still at the beginning of creating a regular net of customers, Sugar Bear Hair was one of the most challenging competitors to beat. So naturally, Tati didn't take it well. Without waiting for his statement, Tati responded with her own Instagram story, where she basically said that she feels used, unappreciated and overall sad.
Another Instagram story from James explained that it was because they gave him an upgraded VIP ticket, so the fans couldn't get as close to him as he was concerned for his safety. James also apologized for the mentioned ad and made sure it was heard, how much Tati's friendship meant to him.
After this, the affair became even more public when fellow beauty vlogger Gabriel Zamora made an entire video defending James Charles. His video might be seen as the last drop for Tati because shortly after, she also made a 40-minute video explaining all the alleged reasons why she doesn't want to be associated with him anymore. She went through many points, involving James not warning her about the ad and him being manipulative (at least that's how she perceived his apology). She also stated that James should apologize to her husband, James, as he promoted him too.
But in light of the following statements, James's advertisement became almost not important. Half into the whole video, Tati accused James of actions regarding his sexuality. Basically, she accused him of forcing other and even younger men to question their sexuality for his pleasure. Needless to say, there was no going back after this. James was seemingly left without words, as he responded with only an 8-minute long video, with a very vague explanation.
That may have been the end of this, but other vloggers joined the fight with their own opinions. One of them is the famous Jeffree Star, a friend of James, stating that James Charles is "a danger to society". On the other hand, Nikita Dragon, who is also James's friend, came to his defence with screenshots containing her conversation with him at Coachella, explaining the need for a VIP ticket. But it was too late, as most of the community was inclined to Tati's side.
James Charles was losing millions of subscribers per day when he finally published a 41-minute-long video called No More Lies. And he was prepared with explanations, screenshots, and statements from mentioned men, proving that he wasn't forcing his sexuality on anyone.
After all of this calmed down a little, they both made some occasional comments, but it was clear they just didn't want to talk about it anymore.
With this controversy, the ongoing lawsuit and Tati Beauty shutting down, Tati disappeared from YouTube for a whole year. She appeared back on YouTube on June 17th 2021 with a video called A Year Later. In the mentioned video, Tati announced she would be coming back to her signature makeup tutorials and reviews but didn't forget to mention all the things that led her to take a whole year to focus on herself.
Nowadays, she continues posting makeup videos as if nothing happened, and her audience, although smaller than before, appreciates it.
Interesting facts about Tati Westbrook
- As of 2022, Tati is 40 years old.
- Her zodiac sign is Aquarius.
- Her height is 5'8'' or 172 cm.
- Tati married her husband, James, after five years of dating.
- Her husband James and her stepson Taylor occasionally appear in her videos.
- She is known for turning down several sponsorships in order to keep her reviews honest.
- She has won a title of YouTube Breakout Beauty Celebrity.
- She also won the Allure Beauty Blogger Award.
