A Billboard for Jeffree Star Cosmetics Has Been Vandalized for His 2008 Racist Comments
Gay internet celebrity and cosmetic artist Jeffree Star recently had a billboard advertising his personal brand of cosmetics vandalized. The billboard for Jeffree Star Cosmetics at Santa Monica Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles, California has the word “RACIST” scrawled upon it in black paint, a reference to videos of Jeffree Star racist comments from around 2008 in which Star repeatedly called a woman “a fucking nigger bitch,” mocked poor Mexicans and called a woman of color an “ape.”
Star’s career as a web persona started in 2003 when he joined the first major social media site MySpace as a gender-bending provocateur who often wrote about self-image, confidence, fame and beauty. By 2006, he had become the person on the site with the most friends (besides Tom, the MySpace co-founder that all MySpace members were required to follow).
After touring around the U.S. and Canada with LOGO TV’s 2007 True Colors Tour featuring LGBTQ musicians, he released his one and only electronic music album Beauty Killer in 2009 (which actually featured Nicki Minaj). After that, he signed up with Akon’s music label to release a second album but it was never created. He left the label in 2013, calling his signing with the label the biggest mistake he’s ever made.
Then, in 2014, Jeffree Star used his life savings to start up Jeffree Star Cosmetics, his personal brand of makeup products. During that time, his saucy makeup tutorials on YouTube have garnered him a following of nearly 9.5 million subscribers with over 1 billion views.
However, in 2017, old videos of Jeffree Star surfaced in which he made racist comments to women of color.
Here’s a quick compilation of Jeffree Star being racist:
Jeffree Star responded by releasing a video apology and explanation (below) in which he admits saying “disgusting, vile, nasty and embarrassing things.”
“I was someone that loved to seek attention when I was younger,” Starr explained in the video. “I loved the shock value, I loved fighting anger with anger and I didn’t know any better. Does that make it ok? Absolutely not.”
He said looking at the videos made him sick to his stomach and added, “I am so sorry for my words. I am so sorry for everything that I’ve said in my past. I can never turn back time and take those moments away.”
