YOUTUBE FIASCO
Who is Laura Lee, what were the beauty guru’s racist tweets and how are Jeffree Star and Gabriel Zamora involved?
WITH five million subscribers and a successful make-up brand, YouTube star Laura Lee's career was thriving.
But, that all came to a halt when her recent racist tweet scandal broke - Here's what we know.
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Who is Laura Lee?
Laura Lee is an Alabama-native YouTube beauty guru who has been posting content since 2013.
The 29-year-old had reached 5 million subscribers on her channel prior to the recent scandal that broke involving her racist tweets from 2012, which has lost her hundreds of thousands of followers.
Her subscriber count currently sits at 4.4 million.
The social media star is one of the most high-profile beauty YouTubers and has her own make-up brand called Laura Lee Los Angeles.
Before her YouTube and social media career, Laura worked as a medical assistant for a dermatologist.
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What were the YouTube star's racist tweets?
Laura Lee's tweets from years ago have outraged her followers who have accused her of being racist.
One of these tweets read: "How do you blindfold a Chinese person? Put floss over their eyes! #Dumbgook";.
And, another used the N word, saying: "Ni**as in Paris? Whaaaaat I thought they couldn't afford to leave Compton! LOL!".
However, it was one tweet in particular that really angered people.
It was posted on July 12, 2012, and said: "Tip for all black people if you pull ur pants up you can run from the police faster #yourwelcome"
Many people on Twitter pointed out that the tweet was posted after the tragic death of the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin who was shot while walking back home from the local shop.
Since the scandal, Laura has posted an apology to Twitter, saying she didn't have the cultural education she has now back then and feels disgusted about her tweets.
She posted: "I deactivated my Twitter because I was mad at myself for the ignorant tweets that I made back in 2012.
"That girl who tweeted that isn't who I am today.
She continued: "Those tweets aren't humorous in any way to me today and I am truly sorry to everyone I have hurt and offended."
She also posted a tearful video on her YouTube channel saying sorry and admitting she can't even bear to look at herself.
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How are Jeffree Star and Gabriel Zamora involved?
Jeffree Star, who used to be friends with Laura Lee, is the founder of Jeffree Star Cosmetics and has nearly 10 million subscribers on YouTube.
He recently dealt with his own racist tweet scandal when his tweets from 10 years ago resurfaced.
After the huge backlash he received, he lost the friendship of a lot of YouTube stars including Laura Lee.
Recently, he opened up about losing his YouTube friends in Shane Dawson's YouTube documentary, saying: "Half of the people still think I'm the bad guy,when I only loved and cared about all these people, boosted them up and gave them all my connections, but I'm still the f*****g bad guy."
Following the documentary beauty YouTuber Gabriel Zamora tweeted a photo of himself with fellow famous YouTubers Laura Lee, Nikita Dragun and Manny MUA with their middle fingers up, with the caption: "B***h is bitter because without him we're doing better".
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His tweet was interpreted as a dig at Jeffree and when Jeffree's fans started reacting, Gabriel said: "Imagine stanning a racist? I could never."
People on Twitter responded to his response by uncovering his racist tweets from 2012, for which he issued an apology statement, promising to learn and grow from this.
Gabriel also apologised to Jeffree Star and the stars in the photo he posted, clarifying that they never cleared his tweet and had no idea he would caption it with those words.
However, furious Jeffree Star fans have taken it upon themselves to uncover the racist Twitter histories of not only Gabriel, but Nikita Dragun and Laura Lee, too.
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