 My head and brain, for a hot minute, went to a place so dark that I didn't think that I was gonna come back from. People always say that being a social media influencer is an easy job. And this is something that I've talked about time and time and time again on YouTube, we get it. But I don't think any human being ever is prepared mentally or physically to deal with the pain and anxiety of what it feels like to have millions and millions of people talking to you at one time. Yeah, for sure. And James Charles, I can definitely relate to that. So in this video, I figured it was the perfect time to revisit my controversy that happened a couple of months ago and spill all of the tea and tell the truth. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, I recently had to rebrand as a social commentary channel because of my past controversy. But anyways, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because we are here to talk about the truth about what really happened to me, all right? So I'm gonna start off by saying this, I messed up. There were definitely missteps I took where my ego got a little bit too big. I was in a cycle of just winning and winning and winning. My subscribers were going up, people loved me. I was getting all this positive feedback and I screwed up. And my whole controversy started out with some leaked DMs where I said something like along the lines of, hey, did you see Trisha Payne is freaking out on me? LOL. And this started and it turned into this whole narrative and all of these lies started getting spread about me. So I've taken a bunch of notes. I'm gonna do my best to make this video not as long as James Charles but kind of break them down piece by piece and explain these things in chronological order, okay? So first, let's start off with bipolar corner. Bipolar corner has had a problem with me for a very long time. I think he originally found my channel before I started using YouTubers to talk about mental health issues but he hasn't liked me for a long time. We've had disagreements but he has emailed me multiple times saying, hey, I know we disagree and he wanted to do collaborations with me which I was open to but he kept attacking me. So I'm like, okay, no, I don't really wanna do that anymore. And basically what happened was and the reason I originally blocked him from my channel and will keep blocking him from my channel was this. I was doing a live stream and my audience, my audience used to be about 85% women, okay? And I have a duty to my audience and I have a duty to protect the people who are following me, right? So I was in a live stream and I think I was like reacting to Shane Dawson's series or something like that. I forgot what it was and I actually paid my editor Zach to go through all of my live streams to try to find the receipts on this but I couldn't find them. Like we spent hours looking for them, I couldn't find them so you're just gonna have to take my word for it if you don't believe me, that's cool. Well anyways, in my live stream which was filled with women, Gary from Bipolar Corner was in there and he started talking about his sex addiction and he started asking the other women in the live stream if they had experience with a sex addiction as well, all right? And it got to a point where it was completely crossing lines, all right? He was telling women in my live stream to DM him and to talk about it and to open up about it and things like that. I personally found this highly inappropriate and seeing as how Gary had a track record of blowing up on me and everything like that, I was like, you know what? I'm just done with this guy, I'm not gonna handle it anymore, like peace. And that's what happened, that's what happened. And since then, Gary has obviously had a vendetta against me and the only videos that he makes that get any kind of real traction are about me. He's incentivized to keep talking trash about me. So then Leafy Greens originally made her video about me and it started to blow up, started to get some traction, okay? And Leafy Greens blew something out of proportion where I said in our podcast that I think she has BPD, okay? The only reason I said that, the only reason I said that and maybe I should have researched her videos a little bit more, but the only reason I said that was because I looked and she had dozens of videos about her borderline personality disorder diagnosis. So in my podcast, I was trying to redirect a lot of my audience who struggles with BPD over to her channel because she makes a lot of videos about BPD and then she made like this whole hour long live stream about how I diagnosed her. And that's part of what started the narrative that I diagnosed people. You are not diagnosing somebody if you say I think they have BPD, especially if it's based on their own account. I did not know at that time that she rejected her diagnosis that is completely up to her, but I wish I would have given more of a context as to why I said I think she had BPD. I was in no way shape or form trying to diagnose this woman. Now, once my DMs got leaked when I was talking to other drama channels, the people I considered, I don't even know if I considered them friends or colleagues or whatever, Levy Green said, and it's a quote in an article she got interviewed for, the same one I got interviewed for in The Verge where she talked about how all of these people got together to do a coordinated attack against me, okay? And the fact that nobody sees a red flag with that like blew my mind, okay? So anyways, let's talk about first, I'll get out of the way, The Viewer's Voice and Dustin Daly. Dustin Daly, him and I had talked a few times just like openly on Twitter, that was about it. The Viewer's Voice, at that time I respected what Nick was doing with his channel and his hustle and everything like that. And again, I screwed up. I was trying to get the story out there about Trisha Paytas attacking me. And it was so stupid and so dumb and I wish I could take it back because it would have just gotten out there anyway, so it was dumb of me to try to feed that story to people, especially looking at how one tweet, one tweet of like less than 10 words has been blown so far out of proportion, okay? But let's talk about Petty Page. Petty Page originally reached out to me a while back and said, hey, that background that you have, that you use, like, how'd you do it? How'd you do it? And I said, my editor did it, my editor's act. And Zach is a broke young dude. I'm like, yo, talk to my editor Zach, see if maybe he can make one for you for cheap. So I linked those two up. I've been nothing but kind and courteous to Petty Page. Well, when the story with Trisha Paytas and I happened, Petty Page approached me. She approached me and said she was thinking about making a video about myself and Trisha Paytas. And I was like, okay, cool. Let me know if you need any information about this. Still to this day, I haven't watched any of her videos about me. I haven't watched any of the videos Dustin Daly, Ashley Kyle, or the viewer's voice made about me. So full disclosure, I haven't watched those. So I don't know if she showed the DMs and like dove into that. But anyways, she approached me. Now, a lot of you know, I make a crap ton of content. I make a ton of content. So I was following up with Petty Page to try to find out when she was releasing the Trisha Paytas video. So that way I could organize my own content and figure out what I was going to release at that time. All right? But one of the main issues I had with the whole narrative creative about me was how manipulative I am, right? Like I'm just nice to people. I try to be nice to people. Now don't get me wrong. I call people out on their BS and I give tough love. But I try to be kind and generous and nice to people. But that was spun into this whole narrative of Chris is only nice to people because he's trying to get something. And that's something that I took a lot of offense to because that's something that I've worked really, really hard to change since I started my recovery journey almost seven years ago. So I didn't appreciate how people like Petty Page were saying I was only being nice to try to get them to get me more views and subscribers and things like that. Next one that I'll shortly address is Cyren Cove. I didn't watch her video about me but I saw a bunch of comments that I was getting hit with about how I manipulated her as well. Cyren Cove and I originally started talking when there was some controversy with Trisha Paytas and Cyren Cove has made a bunch of videos about Trisha Paytas. So that's how we started talking. So when Trisha Paytas came at me, Cyren Cove and I were talking about that situation as well and she was planning on making a video about it. So the same thing with Petty Page, I was talking to Cyren Cove like trying to figure out my own content strategy and following up with that. Now in these situations, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. I think like once this story about me started to blow up, I think that it wasn't malicious. They legitimately felt hurt. They felt like I was manipulating them. And this is why I've been so against cancel culture and being an independent thinker. And I hope this James Charles situation is opening all of your eyes to you need to be an independent thinker. Don't let people tell you how to think about somebody else. So like I'm not trying to discount anybody like Cyren Cove's personal feelings towards me, but I can see how once a narrative was created about me, she can re-look at those messages and say, oh my God, he was manipulating me, all right? The last drama channel I'm gonna touch on is Ashley Kyle. That one hurt. That one hurt a lot, okay? And Ashley Kyle made a video discussing her and I's relationship. Out of all the other drama channels out there, I felt like Ashley Kyle and I were the friendliest. Like I promoted her channel and her videos in my videos and things like that. We talked, she gave me some shout outs and everything. Like we were friendly, okay? And we had private conversations which I'm not gonna bring up fully, but I was so hurt by it because when this all happened, when all of this happened, so many people just threw out everything they knew about me. Everything they knew about me, about being somebody who is passionate about helping people and sending out a message, hey, there's hope, get help for your mental illness, whatever it is, right? So when she did that to me, it hurt because we had a lot of personal in-depth conversations. So when I was interviewed for Inside a Magazine, I referenced it, but I left her completely anonymous. The fact that she went out and she publicly talked about it, that's on her, okay? Because she, I'm assuming she started to feel paranoid and things like that, so she wanted to get ahead of it and addressing. At the end of the day, I'm glad she's getting help, but my experience was that somebody who I had talked to for hours upon hours upon hours upon for the span of, I can't remember how long our relationship was, weeks or months to just turn on me like that, it really hurt. And that's why I empathize with James Charles so much because I understand what he's going through. The reason I've made so many videos defending James Charles because I get it, people you thought were your friends just turning on you, okay? Next, I'm gonna talk about priming, okay? This is the biggest example about how when cancel culture strikes and mod mentality strikes, people do not care about the truth in any way, shape or form. The reality is, my relationship with priming started because he got butt hurt because I disagreed with him in a comment on Repzilla's video. And since then, he had a personal vendetta against me and then when Repzilla stuck up for me because he agreed with my point of view, primink started a personal vendetta against myself and Repzilla, okay? When primink made his video about me calling me a fake therapist, all right? First off, let's address this real quick. How is it in any way, shape or form to take somebody like myself where there's not one single clip out there of me saying I'm a licensed therapist, right? How is it okay for someone to slap the label of fake therapist on me and then people come and attack me saying I'm not even licensed? I never frickin' said I was licensed. But anyways, I made a response video to primink and it just confused me about human beings, right? Like, I debunked every single point that he made and people did not care. People did not care about the truth. People are like, I know you just disproved everything he said with facts, but I still agree with him. Like, what? What? It reminds me of like, there's clips out there of people who were being interviewed about Donald Trump and they were asked like, is there anything Donald Trump could do that would make you not like him anymore? And they're like, no. And I'm like, well, that's concerning, right? I don't mean to compare primink to Donald Trump, but like, how do you not care that somebody who has openly admitted to not watching my videos has taken video titles out of context, me disproving everything he said and just be like, eh, I don't care. But nobody cares. Nobody cares the fact that primink has just spread blatant lies. Like, I think it was Repzilla in his response to primink exposing him. Like, Repzilla showed a DM from primink and I'm not here to defend Repzilla. That's his own thing, right? But primink said, I know you and the rewired soul are working on a video together. Like, what? What? Like, in no way, shape or form, is that true? And I guess I'll address the Repzilla situation really quick. Repzilla and I, we were almost like colleagues. We just talked. We talked about stories. We gave each other YouTube advice. You know, what was going on in the community. That was about the extent. I've never talked to him on the phone. We've never met in person or anything like that. And if I'm being honest, Repzilla hurt my feelings because when all this stuff happened, Repzilla just turned his back on me and just walked out. He's like, you're on your own, buddy. And that's what it felt like. I felt completely deserted. That, again, that's why I empathize with James Charles because when stuff hit the fan, I felt completely deserted. Next, let's talk about T-Buy Alley. T-Buy Alley made an entire video talking about how my mother, my mother, a woman who I respect, who saved my life, who's been sober for all these years, who got her PhD in psychology, T-Buy Alley made a completely ignorant hit piece against my mother about how what she's doing is illegal. And that turned into this whole narrative. I got into it with John Swann because he promoted that narrative as well. Listen to me very carefully. If what my mom was doing was illegal, then what Dr. Phil is doing is illegal as well. Dr. Phil is an unlicensed psychologist, okay? Say it with me. Dr. Phil is an unlicensed psychologist. I even had Dr. Todd Grande on my channel explaining what the difference between licensed and unlicensed mental health professionals are and nobody cared because that's what modern mentality and that's what cancel culture does, okay? So now let's address my deleted video. Okay, I think I mentioned this in an interview with Paul Grossclose. I baited people in because I wanted the most views possible and it was about two a.m. I just got off the phone with somebody. I was in Florida and all the stuff was going down and I was freaking out and my emotions got the best of me and I was like, I want people to see this. But at that time, people in my life were being threatened. My mom was being threatened. There were lies about me. And meanwhile, I was worried about the well-being of Leafy Greens. I was trying to explain to the drama channels. I didn't want an apology from the drama channels. For some reason, they think I want an apology. I wanted them to chill everybody out. Kind of like what Tati Westbrook and Jeffree Sarges did. I wanted them to publicly denounce what was happening because a woman's life and her baby were at stake. So I unblocked Gary from Bipolar Corner that night and I tweeted him and said, yo, you might want to do a wellness check on Leafy Greens because I was worried because this mentally unstable woman had deleted her Twitter, okay? I was worried. So I made that video telling everybody they need to relax because everybody was just trying to get views, trying to get views and keep making videos. Like, do you guys know how many channels I saw making videos about me just because they were getting views? And I get it. I respect the game, baby. I respect the game. But like I saw people who were originally making videos defending me just completely flip the script but they were promoting this and everybody was egging Leafy Greens on and I was worried about her. And no, I didn't call a wellness check on her. I didn't even know her real name at the time or where she lived. But somebody did because they were worried about her. They were worried about a pregnant woman who was talking about self-harming and having mental breakdowns. They were worried about her and called a wellness check. And for all of you other mental health channels out there, you know that because all of you are now making videos exposing Leafy Greens and being worried about her baby. But somehow I was the bad guy in the situation, all right? So really think about that for a second. But also at the point where I made that video, I was considering hiring a lawyer to send out cease and desist letters because it was affecting everything in my life. Like I said, people were getting threatened. Obviously I was losing subscribers. I was losing money. The money that I used to support my son to keep a roof over my head, to pay my bills, all of those things. And I thought I was doing well by trying to give back, doing a bunch of giveaways, charity livestreams and everything like that. But it was hurting me financially. It was ruining my reputation and all that. So I was gonna send out cease and desist to all these people to quit talking slander because people were creating lies about me. But then I realized that if they called my bluff, I didn't have the money to take them to court. But I was trying to make them understand how serious the situation was. Like you're seeing with James Charles right now, people have accused him of slanderous things. And James Charles, he has a lot more money than I do. And he can actually go after people legally. And the next thing we'll talk about with Leafy Greens, right? Everybody was jumping on me and using Leafy Greens clips about me and pretty much every single one of those people has turned against Leafy Greens. And it doesn't make any sense to me how when everybody was making these videos calling out Leafy Greens, nobody said, oh wait, maybe what she was doing to Chris was wrong too. Like nobody's figured that out, right? So one of the last things I want to address is creep show art. Just to tell you how ridiculous everything got, okay? So here's the truth about what happened with creep show art. My beautiful girlfriend Tristan is an artist. She loves watching art YouTubers. She loves it, she loves watching them. And she was a huge fan of creep show art. I was too. My girlfriend will watch creep show art videos and she would have me sit down and watch them and everything like that. And my girlfriend said, hey, creep show art was talking about depression and being hopeless over on Twitter. And I'm like, oh dope, because all of you know I love having guests on my channel to promote other channels. And I think, I can't remember, so don't quote me on this. I think at that time I had a larger following than creep show art. So I was like, oh cool. Like my girlfriend likes creep show art. You know, I think she's pretty cool. Maybe she can come on my channel and share her story, all right? Well, unbeknownst to me, she had just made a comment on Primink's video talking trash about me. So she made a whole video about me saying how I was trying to manipulate her by inviting her on my channel. Now let's step away and just use logic for just a second. By the logic of creep show art, I would have had to days or weeks later bid on Primink's video refreshing the comments. Like think about that for a second. I would have had to be refreshing Primink's comments to see that she said something about me over there and then to tweet at her. Like, do you know how insane that sounds? And she made like what, like a 20 or 30 minute video about how I was trying to manipulate her? Like think about that for a second. Like I'm a busy dude and like what, like refreshing somebody else's page to read comments. Like what are you talking about? All right, but anyways, I felt now is the perfect timing now that you all see what cancel culture and mob mentality just did to James Charles. Now is the time for me to address this. Yes, I've lost 20,000 subscribers since all this happened. I was at 102,000 subscribers, but that doesn't matter. What hurt me the most is that people who I considered friends in the YouTube community just completely cut me off. There are people that I have done collabs with on my channel who have met me in person, who have met me, seen my character, seen who I am as a person and they refuse to talk to me now because of all the lies that were being spread about me on YouTube. Now, I'm not gonna mention any names, but there are other YouTube creators who have been talking to me behind the scenes and they've been a massive part of my support group ever since all this happened, but all of them are afraid to interact with me publicly because everybody out there in the hate mob was attacking anybody who defended me. All right, so I hope at the end of the day this James Charles situation teaches all of you to get that cancel culture nonsense and mob mentality out of your mind. I'm not perfect, nobody's perfect, I never claimed to be perfect, we're all gonna screw up, but it is not okay to create up lies and narratives about somebody and try to ruin their lively hood. That is just not okay. All right, so, huh, whew. I've been waiting to get all that out for a while. But anyways, that's all I got. Like this video, share this video, subscribe, re-subscribe, but yeah, I hope you all have a good awesome day. I'll see you next time.