A timeline of how Trisha Paytas turned against Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star
- Trisha Paytas is a controversial YouTuber with 4.8 million subscribers whose 12-year friendship with Shane Dawson includes defending him during his summer 2020 "cancelation."
- But Paytas announced she was ending her friendship with Dawson and his fiancé after the pair failed to defend her against Jeffree Star's former wig stylist.
- The explosive YouTube drama started with accusations that Star bullied Paytas on a trip they took to Las Vegas in February 2020, and multiple influencer friendships have since dissolved.
Trisha Paytas is a YouTube drama headliner, cycling through nonstop feuds with the platform's biggest stars. But the most recent drama involving Paytas is one of the most consequential for her yet, as she publicly dropped Shane Dawson - her friend of 12 years - over a conflict between her and makeup mogul Jeffree Star.
The Paytas vs. Dawson and Star feud has captivated their combined YouTube audience of more than 42.5 million people. Paytas has accused Star of bullying her on a February 2020 trip to Las Vegas, and that fateful Valentine's Day weekend has led to a breakdown of powerful (and profitable) alliances in the YouTube beauty community. Meanwhile, Paytas capitalized on the drama for multiple episodes of her "Frenenemies" podcast.
Other accusations emerged from the trip against Star, and some of them have been overlooked during the erosion of one of YouTube's longest friendships. Here's a timeline of how Paytas split from Dawson and how Star's reputation became even more contentious in the process.
The seeds of influencer drama were planted in Las Vegas
Rewind to February 2020, and Star embarked with Paytas, a friend he'd collaborated with on several YouTube videos, on his first Valentine's Day weekend since announcing his breakup with Nathan Schwandt.
The pair took a private jet to Las Vegas, where they stayed in a hotel with Star's wig stylist, makeup artist, and some of his other friends. Everything looked blissful on social media, but what happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas.
The first account against Star was from a former MySpace pal
Months passed, the coronavirus spread in the US, and Valentine's Day weekend became a relic of the pre-pandemic times. Through quarantine, influencers like Star and Dawson stirred the pot, leading to cataclysmic summer YouTube drama. Several "expose" videos sparked a wide backlash against both of them, and one of those exposés was posted and soon deleted by Star's former friend Tab David. The video was reuploaded by drama channel Sanders Kennedy.
Read more: A timeline of how the internet turned against the top YouTubers Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star
Star didn't respond to multiple requests for comment about David's video and David declined to comment further to Insider. In the video, David said he lives in Las Vegas and was invited to spend the weekend with Star and Star's friends. David, who said he met Star "off MySpace" around 13 years ago, said he witnessed Star bullying one of his friends while in Las Vegas.
David didn't name anyone, but it was later revealed that he was talking about Paytas when he said that he witnessed Star made fun of someone's weight, skin, and past drug abuse on the trip.
"There had been a friend earlier in the night who was in the room who didn't attend the club with us," David said about Paytas in the video. "They had continued to make fun of this person all day, talk about how bad their skin was, body-shame them, talk about their weight, talk about their past drug abuse, talk about their recovery, just the most disgusting, horrible things for him, his crew, who does hair and makeup, who works in the industry, to say."
David also accused Star of calling the musician Gwen Stefani an anti-Semitic slur after she canceled her concert that Star was supposed to attend that weekend. David went on to say that Star's bodyguard revealed to him that he was fired from his previous job in the police force for using the "N-word" slur on the job and that Star was aware of his past when he hired him. David also said Star referred to undocumented individuals as "illegals."
The allegations about Star's behavior on the trip were speculated at the time of David's video's release to be about Paytas, although in June 2020 both Star and Paytas denied the speculation. A month later, Paytas changed her story.
While defending Dawson in July 2020, Paytas revisited the allegations of bullying on the Las Vegas trip
In July 2020, the internet had turned against Star and Dawson. Dawson in particular received intense criticism, with swarms of people calling him out for offensive old content and alleged manipulation of YouTube drama behind-the-scenes.
Two of Hollywood's most famous family members, Jada Pinkett and Jaden Smith, lambasted Dawson for a resurfaced clip of the YouTuber, then 22, pretending to masturbate to a poster of 11-year-old Willow Smith. Despite a massive public outcry that forced Dawson off YouTube indefinitely, Paytas defended him.
At the time, Paytas released a video saying her defense didn't apply to Star, who she said left her "in tears" after Las Vegas. Paytas admitted that the allegations in David's video about Star and Star's friends bullying her were true.
Then, on Twitter, Paytas tweeted that there was a "voice memo" she heard of someone talking "s---" behind her back. The tweets were posted right around the time she was calling out Star, so it's widely believed she's referencing a tape from the Las Vegas weekend. Later, Paytas claimed again that there were recordings of Star insulting her.
Paytas would also go on to discuss her face-to-face interactions with Star in Vegas. She said that he knocked her hand away from a nacho she was reaching toward and told her "Don't eat." Paytas also said that while discussing her mental health and past suicidal thoughts, Star told her she should jump off the hotel balcony.
A few days after claiming that Star had bullied her on the trip, Paytas made a video addressing his apology. She said that Star had reached out privately and said he was getting therapy and "working on himself." Paytas said she wasn't ready to accept the apology then, and has maintained that she cannot accept the apology because she heard that Star continued to bad-mouth her throughout the year behind her back.
Almost a year after the trip, Star's wig stylist threatened Paytas
In January 2021, after Paytas again acknowledged the Vegas trip and Star's bullying in a vlog, one of Star's former stylists hit back at her in a threatening livestream. Hair by Jay, a wig stylist who worked closely with Star and was in Las Vegas on the Valentine's Day trip, recorded himself shouting obscenities and insults about Paytas. He confirmed that Star and Star's employees attacked Paytas for her skin, weight, and appearance.
While reacting to the video on her YouTube channel, Paytas started crying and said Hair by Jay's rant triggered her anxiety after being "traumatized" by the Las Vegas trip. Paytas is a 24/7 content churner and that night she also posted a series of frenzied "expose" TikToks about the situation. She then made a calmer appearance on a live YouTube talk show with Ethan Klein, her podcast co-host, to explain what was happening.
In addition to calling out Star and Star's friends for "mean girl s---," Paytas said she was scared of Star and had confided in Dawson and Dawson's fiancé Ryland Adams about the Las Vegas trip. She said it upset her when, months later, Star appeared on Adams' podcast for a friendly interview. Klein and his wife Hila immediately declared their support for Paytas and called Star and Hair by Jay "sadistic."
Star avoided taking accountability while Dawson's fiancé fanned the flames of outrage
After Paytas reacted to Hair by Jay, Star quickly conducted damage control. He announced that Jay was his "former" wig stylist, suggesting he fired him, the next day and addressed Paytas by saying she ignored all his messages in order to have an "internet circus." The attention shifted from Star to Dawson as Paytas continued to lambast her former close friend for failing to defend her against Star and Star's friend group.
Dawson has yet to publicly address the controversy, but Adams dedicated the beginning of his most recent podcast episode to their response. Adams said that he stood with Paytas over Hair by Jay, but he added that he wished Paytas had brought the situation to them privately instead of airing it out online. The podcast segment was widely rebuked and the comments section was turned off after Adams and Dawson received backlash for not rebuking Star.