It all started with one image – a dig at Jeffree Star, which didn’t go unnoticed. But it has devolved into a tangled web, leading to the downfall of several beauty vloggers and a lot of pointed fingers. It is basically one giant, internet-era telenovela.
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On August 12, Gabriel Zamora posted an image where he posed alongside Laura Lee, Nikita Dragun, and Manny Gutierrez (aka Manny MUA). “Bitch is bitter because without him we’re doing better,” the now-deleted accompanying caption read. The photo came a few days after Star said in a five-part YouTube documentary that he boosted his former vlogger friends, who have made him out to be the bad guy. So people quickly picked up on Gabriel’s subtweet, and Zamora confirmed their suspicions, stating, “Imagine stanning a racist? I could never.” (Star has made racist comments in the past and says he has since changed, but people like Zamora didn’t believe this was true.) Star’s fans saw this as an invitation to dig into the vloggers’ Twitter history and find examples of their own problematic behavior. And they succeeded.
People allegedly found tweets of the vloggers using the N-word, making jokes about pedophilia, criticizing those who can’t speak English, and employing other offensive, racist, and prejudiced language.
As people dug up more incriminating messages and they lost followers and sponsorships, Manny, who had the least troublesome Twitter history, liked tweets that called him innocent and that suggested he put an end to his friendship with Zamora. All four have also issued apologies via their own social media channels – some even filmed almost hour-long apology videos. Unlike the other vloggers, Star isn’t embroiled in controversy, and he even posted a gleeful picture of himself following the backlash.
Zamora, who initially apologized to Star on August 15 via Twitter, followed it up with a video, titled “My Truth,” on August 21. There, he reveals that they all had agreed to apologize, but that Manny hadn’t followed through, instead attempting to maintain his innocence. In the video, he takes Star’s side and shifts blame onto Manny, explaining that “a lot of the negativity” in his life are “due to this one person… and that’s Manny.”
Manny MUA then filmed his own video, titled “My reality check,” where he apologized to Zamora. “I want to apologize to Gabby. Watching that video, I can see the hurt in his eyes,” he said. “And I understand where he’s coming from 100 percent. And looking back, I would change things if I could. Seeing it from his view and his lens [what he said in his video] is 100 percent true. I would have thought my friends abandoned me as well.”
For now, this is the extent of the feud. But Manny and Gabriel have both said they would now take some time off.