James Charles hits back at outrage over resurfaced Tony Lopez kissing video

YouTube star and makeup mogul James Charles has hit back at critics after a year-old video resurfaced, which showed him nearly kissing controversial TikToker Tony Lopez in what appears to be a joke between them.

The TikTok-sphere is constantly aflame with news and criticism regarding platform star Tony Lopez, who is currently undergoing accusations of grooming minors.

In August 2020, Tony sparked outrage online after a video claimed he had explicitly messaged an underage girl. While he quickly issued a formal apology, that wasn’t the end of the allegations, by far.

In January 2021, Lopez was sued by two minors for “sexual battery and emotional distress,” with one of the accusations claiming that he had met with the minor — knowing she was underage — and “engaged in unlawful sexual acts.”

Twitter, @lopez__tony

Tony Lopez’s August apology on Twitter.

This, unsurprisingly, has made Lopez the number one most-wanted personality on TikTok — and influencers who once collaborated with him are coming under fire for failing to publicly disavow him and take down any content featuring him.

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The outrage surrounding Lopez has come to a fever pitch after a video of he and James Charles made the rounds on social media.

In the short clip, a playful James Charles appears to jokingly approach Lopez for a kiss, who turns away at the last moment to give the camera a shocked look.

https://twitter.com/defnoodles/status/1355952892797014017?s=20

Charles was called out by popular drama YouTuber Def Noodles, who uploaded the clip to Twitter. Needless to say, it doesn’t seem like Charles is a fan of the callout, as he hit back at Noodles in a biting response, calling the page’s owner a “pathetic excuse of a drama channel.”

Charles’ reply has been met with an avalanche of disapproval as commenters hit back at the beauty guru for not taking down his older videos with Lopez and, at the time of writing, not publicly speaking against him.

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Similarly, critics have gone after Nikita Dragun for the same thing, and are still awaiting an official statement on the subject as the outrage continues to grow against Lopez.