24-year-old social media influencer and ex-beauty guru Bretman Rock opened up about the dark side of the beauty community in an interview with 'Them.' In the interview, titled "Becoming Bretman Rock," Bretman takes us along his journey of stardom, like his start on Vine, his MTV reality show, and of course, the reason the once reigning king of beauty stepped away from his throne.
In 2021, Bretman sat in front of his camera and announced his departure from the makeup world in a Youtube video.
"I don't want to be tied to the beauty community anymore. I am not a beauty guru," he said in the vid, commenting on how much the environment has changed negatively. In his interview, Bretman said people weren't happy about what he said then, but he still stands by his words.
"When I first started the beauty industry I fell in love with the creators, and it made me wanna do what I wanted to do, which was literally just share makeup and share my confidence with the world, share people how to grow their eyebrows back, share people how to contour, share people my new favorite foundation, you know, and I don't know why it got lost in translation when non-colored individuals were coming in, and it just became a money industry."
"When did beauty become so ugly?" he questioned. "It's no longer a beauty industry, beauty community, and I use the word community very loosely."
Bretman expressed his frustrations with the community, saying that people started coming for the wrong reasons (aka only for $$$) and not with good intentions.
"B*tch, it was like, ugh, how are y'all, do y'all not even know how to apologize? It's as simple as addressing what you did, saying sorry, and never doing it again," he said. "But you b*tches are gonna cry, make up excuses, not say sorry, and still do the sh*t you said. The beauty industry became the sorry industry."
Bretman's social media journey started in 2014 on Vine, when one of his videos one day went viral, and since then, he's become quite accomplished. In 2015, he began posting makeup tutorials on Youtube. In 2018, at just 20 years old, he made it onto the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia. That same year, Bretman collabed with Morphe on the "Babe in Paradise" highlighter palette. He expressed how thankful he is that Morphe was his first collab because they were one of the only brands at the time to support queer makeup artists. In 2021 came the reality series MTV's Following: Bretman Rock. That same year, he won the MTV award for Breakthrough Social Star. On Valentine's Day this year, Bretman came out with his book You're That Bitch: & Other Cute Lessons About Being Unapologetically Yourself.
Bri is the editorial assistant at Seventeen covering pop culture, celebrity news, fashion, and beauty. You can probably find her sipping an oatmilk iced chai while searching for the best new makeup products or thrifting her entire wardrobe.
