Yesterday, we poured ourselves a hot cup of tea and speculated about the apparent end of beauty YouTube's most visible friendship — Jeffree Star, Manny MUA, and Laura Lee.
Today, more details have come to light, and the situation appears even shadier than we thought.
If you missed the drama of yesterday, a quick summary: Over the last few months, fans have suspected that Jeffree, Manny, and Laura have had a falling out. This seemed to be confirmed on November 15 — Star's birthday.
Neither Manny nor Laura publicly acknowledged Star's birthday on Twitter or Instagram, but both subtweeted some cryptic stuff about negativity and shady people. Star's own social media seemed to indicate that even though he was sent a lot of gifts to celebrate, there was nothing from his two closest friends.
This was a major departure for the three supposed BFFs, whose friendship has always been an extremely visible and important part of their respective brands. Fans were quick to notice the omission, and speculate about the deceased relationship. A close look back seems to reveal that Jeffree hasn't spoken publicly to Manny or Laura since Halloween.
You can read all about it, and see the receipts I pulled, right here.
Manny wasn't super stoked on the drama, and publicly shut it down.
"And for the record, Laura and I both texted Jeffree happy birthday yesterday," he wrote on Twitter. "A relationship is between you and one person, not millions of people."
Please note that Jeffree wasn't tagged in this tweet, btw — just named.
But a couple hours later, Star tweeted "There's no loyalty in LA."
To what could he be referring? Possibly the friendship between Manny/Laura, and noted Jeffree enemies Jaclyn Hill, Gabriel Zamora, Nikita Dragun, and Nikkie Tutorials?
Star further replied to a friend "It's SCARY how evil people are... we need a vent session ASAP."
All was quiet on the Western front — by which I mean California — until early in the morning on November 16 when THIS happened.
Here For The Tea provided a screenshot of Jeffree going to town on a Twitter user who was defending Manny's behaviour. "He never called me," Star allegedly wrote. "Stop defending someone who could give one less fuck about you. He doesn't."
This tweet was deleted in a matter of seconds, and no longer exists on Star's account. But I have seen various versions of this screencap with identical text and syntax, suggesting that the image was saved from multiple phones and desktops. Here For The Tea also stands by its authenticity, so.
And Laura went to Snapchat to vent about fans calling her out for shading... Zoella?
"I was given a huge opportunity... to give back," she said, per Here For The Tea. "And people are commenting under the fucking post, asking if I'm shading another YouTuber, or Zoella. Why would I shade Zoella? What is going on? ...I'm talking about giving, and people are asking if I'm fucking over another YouTuber."
To be very clear — per the mentions I can see, a handful of people have asked Laura if her cryptic tweets recently are referencing the Zoella advent calendar disaster. The MAJORITY of people are asking her about Jeffree. Like Manny, she also doesn't mention former friend Star by name... there's just an oblique reference to "another YouTuber."
If everything was fine, wouldn't she just say so? This is either a masterful PR move, or some medium-skillful deflection on her part.
Meanwhile, although the original tweets have vanished, Star has been interacting with his fans — especially those who appear to be taking his side.
So what "honesty" is Star fire emoji-ing?
This particular Twitter fan (his feed is very NSFW, please be aware) publicly said things like "they were always snakes, no matter how much [love] you showed them. manny is particularily disgusting for doing this to you especially after everything you did for him."
Jeffree didn't favorite or retweet any of this, but applauding "the honesty" of statements like that definitely seems like an endorsement.
It seems that Jeffree's Plastics have truly disbanded — now the question is why. And it seems like the answer is going to have to be pretty huge.
I can't speculate on the private depth of friendship between Manny, Jeffree, and Laura, but at the VERY LEAST they seemed to be a formidable professional force. They did business together, filmed together, appeared in shoots together, and even got sued together that one time. Each of them are names in their own right, but it wasn't until Jeffree, Manny, and Laura united that their careers TRULY took off.
A disruption to that friendship, and therefore to each of their brands, wouldn't just fuck up their personal lives — it has the potential to fuck up their money, too.
But odds are that we won't have to wait long to learn more. "If I had to bet who would have verbal diarrhea first, it would be Jeffree," as Here For The Tea so eloquently put it. "And it seems like he's starting to crack."
I'll keep you posted, as always, on everything and anything that goes down. You know you love me, xoxo.
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