James Charles Breaks Silence on Former Employee's Lawsuit, Says He Feels Like He's Being Blackmailed

James Charles feels like he’s being blackmailed by a former employee and he’s finally breaking his silence on the lawsuit that she recently filed against him.

The 21-year-old YouTuber revealed that the lawsuit has been in the works for two years and that he’s finally talking because of a news article that’s coming out soon that will feature allegations from the employee.

Keep reading to find out all of the details on the lawsuit and why he refuses to settle…

James is being sued by ex-employee Kelly Rocklein, who worked as his video editor and then as his producer. She is claiming wrongful termination and there are also claims about poor treatment, failure to provide overtime pay, and more. James says he feels like he’s being blackmailed by her.

“For those who are not aware, for the last two years I’ve been dealing with an ongoing lawsuit from one of my previous employees,” James said in a video on Twitter, which was posted on Monday night (May 10).

He continued, “This is something that I have never spoken about, never mentioned because I wanted to keep it private out of respect for her and the fact that it’s literally an ongoing litigation. But now she’s speaking about it which is just perfect timing considering everything else that’s going on.”

If you missed the news, James has been accused of inappropriate texting with several underage fans.

Kelly tweeted on April 26, “Watching the same people who screwed me over massively end up in deep scandals isn’t news to me, it’s karmic debt.” Most people assume she’s talking about James. Minutes later she tweeted, “Won 1, going 2 for 2 because I’m all about law and order.”

If you didn’t know, Kelly is also a former employee of social media star Erika Costell and went through a lawsuit with her over employee mistreatment.

James explained in his video that he hired Kelly to edit his YouTube videos and she was later promoted to be a producer, which meant that she no longer edited videos and instead was his “right hand person for a salary of $72,000 a year.” She was let go after working for him for six months.

In the video, James explained how his team is like his family and he said the accusations are “wildly untrue” and make him sick to his stomach.

James talked about how most cases of these nature don’t make it to court because it’s such a long process and gets expensive for the defendant, so the defendant will settle for an amount of money so that the suit gets dropped.

“Settling is oftentimes a good option, a smarter option, because it’s faster, it’s cheaper, and it’s a lot less of a headache… but settling is no longer an option on the table and I’m going to tell you why,” James said.

He continued, “This week I was reached out to for comment about a news article that is coming soon and I’ve learned that she’s talking to the press about this lawsuit and what it was like to work for me as an employee. However, she’s adding a ton of absolutely ridiculous, absurd, untrue, defamatory, just the craziest claims you can ever imagine. And in my opinion it’s an attempt to pressure me to make a much higher settlement offer. I’m talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

James called the claims being made against him “disgusting” and said his “only option is to pursue this to fullest extent of the law and hope that when it gets to a court room in the future that justice will be served.”

You can watch the video below.