James Charles, a 21-year-old multimillionaire beauty influencer has had a promising and lucrative career until recently, as his career is on a downswing because of controversies. Currently, James Charles is losing monetization on YouTube because of being drowned in controversies since the sexting scandal allegedly involving underage boys. On Monday, he broke the self-created silence as he returned to social media with a video named ‘holding myself accountable. In that video Charles spoke about the sexting scandal, along with that he claimed that he is being “blackmailed” by one of his former employees.
Kelly Rocklein’s accusations
Kelly Rocklein former producer and creative director to James Charles has filed a lawsuit against the YouTube fashion icon, alleging wrongful termination. She worked for James for six months in 2018 until she was fired. Kelly accuses James of saying that she was fired without even being considered for her medical condition.
In the complaint, Kelly Rocklin accused Charles of alleging that she was working overtime for him. She claimed that Charles required her to work for 12 hours a day and seven days a week with minimum wage. Along with that she faced disability discrimination and failure to provide reasonable accommodation. In the complaints, she said that had provided her with a promotion from video editor to the producer, although he didn’t hire anyone for the old position. Thus, she had to work for both the position and was never paid for it.
She had suffered a head injury in the presence of James Charles on 4th September 2018. The injury resulted to headaches, temporary loss of consciousness, confusion and amnesia. In the complaint, Kelly accused James for not being sympathetic towards her injury and the recovery needs. On the contrary, he hardheartedly accused her for not being a dedicated job which is being delayed as she is hospitalized.
Kelly had taken a week off for a concussion as recommended by a doctor. When she returned from that one week of she was fired on 19th September 2018 for being unavailable for a week. The complaint alleges that, despite of never receiving any negative performance feedback Kelly was fired.
James Charles claims it to be blackmail.
In the video he claimed that Rocklin is taking the advantage of the situation and she chose “perfect” timing to go public with her accusations. As she is seeking “hundreds of thousands of dollar”, whereas was Rocklin is looking for is pay beck in suit and damages for distress. Rocklin’s lawyer didn’t state an exact amount but he said that his client wants a “significant amount” for the damages caused.
James Charles had mentioned that Kelly’s behavior is nothing but an attempt to pressure him into making a much higher amount of settlement. Adding to this he said that, “at this point, his only option is to pursue this to the fullest extent of law and when it reaches the courtroom justice will be served.”
Based on the recent comments of James Charles and Kelly Rocklin the matter is definitely going to the court. The recent video uploaded by James is his latest scandal.
For further updates stay with Stanford Arts Review.
