TikTok stars Charlie and Dixie D’Amelio are facing criticism over their behavior towards private chef Aaron May.
Earlier this week, they launched their family’s YouTube series on their channel. The premiere episode of Dinner With The D’Amelios features the sisters, Charli and Dixie, their parents, Marc and Heidi, and special guest James Charles, having dinner together prepared by Chef Aaron.
One of the dishes served was a huge plate of paella – and Dixie wasn’t too keen about one of the ingredients on the dish: a snail. After trying it, she ended up leaving the room to throw up. Then, Charli asks “Do we have any Dino Nuggets?”
Upon returning to the table, Dixie explains that the dish was “good, but then there was a salty part on it that was not good,” adding, “it tastes like chicken, and then I tried the salty part and everything came up.” Then, she turned to Chef Aaron and asked, “You have a child, what do you, like, think is going to happen?”
During the dinner, Charli also complained about not reaching 100 followers on TikTok – she has 98.8 million fans and is the most-followed person on the platform.
“Ugh, I wish I had, like, more time because imagine if I hit 100 mil a year after hitting a mil,” Charli said.
“Was the 95 not enough for you?” James asked.
“Well, I was just like saying like, even numbers,” she responded.
The video has since sparked a lot of backlash, with people criticizing the sisters for their behavior, while others praised James for being polite.
“James has such good manners,” one fan wrote in the comments. “I feel bad for him that he had to see Dixie and Charli’s disgusting and disrespectful behavior”
“Alright cancel culture, you know what to do,” one user added, “but don’t touch James because he was actually POLITE.”
Another commented, “That is so rude and the chef probably felt so uncomfortable.”
According to Buzzfeed News, Charli ended up losing 500,000 since the video’s release.
Charli went on Instagram Live on Thursday to address the backlash.
“Seeing how people reacted to this, I don’t even know if I want to do this anymore,” she said tearfully. “This is messed up stuff that people are saying. Like people telling me to hang myself. People just blatantly disrespecting the fact that I’m still a human being is not okay at all.
“We should have done better on our part with the editing to make you guys know that it was a joke and that’s on me,” Charli continued. “I take full responsibility for that.”
“When I had said about the followers things, I genuinely just thought it would be so cool to hit a huge, huge milestone a year after hitting another milestone,” she said, addressing the comment she made about her number of followers. “I never meant for you guys to make it seem like you were numbers or did not mean anything.”
Dixie also posted a video on her TikTok to speak out about the criticism.
“My family and I have been working with Chef Aaron May for a couple of months now, working on content for our channel and working on content for his channel, and [we’ve] made an amazing friendship,” she said. “Before I even get into anything, I’m so grateful for every single person that follows me, every single person I care about, every single person I work with, every single person who works with me because I’m just so grateful for all of the opportunities I’ve had.”
“My team knows I throw up a lot. I throw up at the smell, the thought or the taste of anything,” Dixie added. “So, when they saw the snails, they were like, ‘Oh, let’s get her and try to see if we can get a reaction out of her.’ … I love [our] chef, and I would never disrespect him in any way.”
James also went on Twitter to defend Charli.
“this charli situation is NOT sitting right with me… 100M followers in one year & y’all expect her to know how to be a perfect role model? death threats because she’s a picky eater & made a joke about a milestone? 30+ year olds dragging someone half their age? feels familiar,” he wrote.
Chef Aaron himself says he didn’t take her reaction personally.
“I would call it ‘fake news’ right now. Those girls are the greatest, I love them. It was all fun and games,” he told The Hollywood Fix. “Not at all, not at all [were my feelings hurt]. I don’t expect her to love the snails. Like I said, somebody thought it would be funny to feed them snails, and they reacted the way they reacted. It’s all good.”
