The witch hunt is officially over. On Tuesday, January 28, YouTube star Nikkie de Jager (a.k.a. NikkieTutorials), revealed that she knows who blackmailed her into coming out as a transgender woman.
Two weeks prior, on Monday, January 13, Jager shared a video titled “I’m Coming Out.” In it, the makeup expert shared her truth on her world-famous platform.
The artist told fans that she’s “always wanted to share” that part of herself with followers, but she wanted it to be “under her own circumstances.” But when the aforementioned individual blackmailed her into telling the world, the decision was made for her.
“I wanted to be my own person, my own identity, my own human being without any rules, without any labels and without any restrictions,” she said in the beginning of the now-viral video. “I want to start the year off with the truth.”
In her new 17-minute video titled “Responding to My Coming Out.” Jager applied a colorful makeup look while sharing life updates with her 13 million subscribers. Jager told her fans about the positive responses she’s received in the two weeks following her coming-out video — in addition to the most challenging piece of it all.
Nearly ten minutes in, she brought up her blackmailer. “With the help of police, we have found out who exactly was blackmailing me. I have their names, their phone numbers, email addresses…I even know where they live and how they treated people around me to get more information on my true story.”
One thing Jager wasn’t thrilled about was the public’s response, which was to try and do detective work to uncover the blackmailer. “I think we need to stop the witch hunt that I’ve been seeing going around,” said the star. “I’ve been seeing so many truth videos saying ‘oh my god, this is Nikki’s blackmailer.’”
She continued, “To be honest, I don’t think that is your story to tell. If anyone’s going to have the right to tell more about these blackmailers, it’s going to be me.”
So here’s what Jager was willing to share with the world: it’s a man with a family and she doesn’t know him personally. “When I found out exactly who was behind this all, I was shocked because this is not a person any of you know. It’s someone I don’t personally know. Finding out exactly who did this was frightening, but freeing at the same time.”
Jager decided that she’s not going to publicly “out” the individual, at least not right now, anyway. “Nobody should get away with blackmailing, but when I look at my situation of my life and everything that happened to me, that person has been punished. I don’t want to lower myself to his level.”
One final note that the YouTube sensation shared about this experience is that it’s important to speak up if this happens to you. “My situation is a special type of situation because I live in front of all of you. I live my live publicly and I got the chance to take back my power,” explained Jager. “But if you’re not in the position to take back your power, you need to seek help from police, friends and family.”