Here For The Tea Creator Samantha Rabinowitz, Chronicler Of Beauty Influencer Missteps, Dies

Samantha Rabinowitz, creator of the popular beauty influencer drama channel Here For The Tea, has died.

The news was revealed by her older sister Lisa Greenspoon. On Rabinowitz’s Instagram account Monday, Greenspoon wrote, “She passed away peacefully in her sleep yesterday.” No cause of death or biographical information were provided. Rabinowitz died six days after posting on Twitter that she received “some devastating news recently” and wanted to be offline for a while.

In beauty gossip circles, Rabinowitz was among the most respected voices and stood out for her moral clarity. She was known for spotlighting the foibles of big-name influencers, notably Jeffree Star, James Charles and Jaclyn Hill, but also was a supporter of many leading beauty influencers, including Manuel Gutierrez Jr., aka Manny MUA, Laura Lee, Tati Westbrook and Jackie Aina.

Aina, Lee, Westbrook and Gutierrez joined fellow influencers, beauty editors and brand founders such as Nicol Concilio, Vlada Haggerty, Gabriel Zamora, Marlena Stell, founder of Makeup Geek, and Kirbie Johnson, co-host of the podcast Gloss Angeles, in taking to social media to share their thoughts on Rabinowitz and express their condolences to her family.

On Twitter, Aina wrote, “Sam was genuinely one of the good ones who made social media less shitty. at a time when it was REALLY shitty. she was sweet, she was no BS and you couldn’t put a price on her integrity. Ever.” On the same platform, Johnson wrote, “Sam was the was the only tea account I trusted. She had a knack for knowing news before it was news. She was great at what she did and I enjoyed our relationship over the years…really such a tragic loss of life.”

In the mid-2010s, Here For The Tea emerged along with a number of drama channels chronicling the rise of beauty influencers, and their brands, partnerships, products and frequent bad behavior. Rabinowitz established her channel on YouTube in 2016. Currently, Here For The Tea has nearly 400,000 YouTube subscribers, and 155,900 and 134,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram, respectively.

Rabinowitz’s close friend and researcher Harley Jenn MC recounts that Rabinowitz initially began her channel to review products. “She started to see how influencers would post content and lie, and not disclose that they were being paid for the reviews. It infuriated her,” she says. “She started calling out non-disclosures and influencer posts that were full of sponsored content and didn’t say a word about it.”

On Reddit, fans of Here For The Tea pointed out the impact Rabinowitz had exposing commercial ties that influencers concealed. “She really was a pioneer for holding beauty influencers accountable,” wrote a Redditor with the handle help_loloren. “She was one of the first drama channels to break the story of influencers not disclosing affiliate links and discount codes in the era of the ever present morphe code. She taught a lot of consumers to have pause over influencer recommendations and even helped influencers follow [Federal Trade Commission] guidelines.”

The influencer Jaclyn Hill was the subject of many Here For The Tea posts and videos. On YouTube, Here For The Tea’s most-viewed video is entitled, “The Truth About Jaclyn Hill: The Beginning.”

According to reporting by Cheryl Wischhover for Vox, the term “tea” stems from a shortening of the word “truth” to T and, subsequently, tea. It originated in Black drag culture. Sanders Kennedy is recognized as an early pioneer of beauty drama content. On Monday, he uploaded a YouTube video discussing Rabinowitz’s death. “She was a huge part of the drama community, and this is really sad and heartbreaking and just shocking,” said Kennedy in the video.

Rabinowitz motivated people to jump into the content game. Mocha Pennington, co-founder of the drama channel Tea Time, says, “We were inspired by the details she put into her videos and her humor. Sam was so funny and witty.” Tea Time wasn’t only inspired by Rabinowitz’s videos, Rabinowitz personally cheered the channel on.

“We would tweet at her or comment on her tweets. We were surprised that she started to respond. She would watch our videos and DM us. We built a relationship with her,” says Pennington. “We asked her, we want you to help us out, and we will pay you. She was like, ‘Oh no, don’t give me no damn money. I don’t need it.’ She would sit on the phone with us for hours and give us feedback on what we need to change and keep. She was so helpful to our channel.”

Pennington believes Rabinowitz will be remembered for documenting Star’s racist history and developing an exacting style of tea content. “Other channels, they skim the surface. She would go in-depth,” says Pennington. “She had research. She had receipts. She had screenshots.”

Rabinowitz was a highly private person. She was rarely seen, but, behind the scenes, Harley Jenn MC recalls that Rabinowitz regularly reached out to followers who were struggling. “I watched her help someone that lost their home. She literally paid for their moving truck, found an apartment for them and paid first month’s rent,” she says. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She was really so, so kind. As a drama channel, because of the hate that comes with it, sometimes people didn’t know that side of Sam. They think she was bitter and, no, she was so kind to people.”

Drama channels have been involved in quite a bit of drama themselves, and Here For The Tea was no exception. As noted by Insider, Rabinowitz feuded with Peter Monn and Dustin Dailey, drama channel creators as well, in the past. On Monday, Monn wrote on Twitter, “We had our ups and downs through the years but that girl was really there for me through some of my toughest times. We laughed we cried and she will always be remembered!”

“Other channels, they skim the surface. She would go in-depth. She had research. She had receipts. She had screenshots.”

Ali from the drama channel Truth Sleuth had a turbulent relationship with Rabinowitz, too. Reacting to Rabinowitz’s death, she wrote on her social media accounts, “These last several months, we have made peace and had some funny conversations and it was nice getting to know her on that level once we worked shit out. I am sad to learn about her passing. She will be missed.”

Last year, Sophie Shab, the influencer behind the Trendmood account, sued Rabinowitz for defamation. This year, the lawsuit was dismissed. On her Twitter account, Rabinowitz wrote, “So many creators attempt to silence critics with lawsuits and I absolutely was not going to let that precedent be set.”

With drama channels and the influencer community maturing, Here For The Tea was navigating the changing environment as TikTok became a social media force and tea got serious. “When it first started, they would talk about little petty stuff like a hair in highlighter. Now, it’s gotten a lot darker. We are talking about James Charles and the allegations against him, and Jeffree Star and his racism,” says Pennington, referring to accusations of sexual misconduct against Charles.

Amid the changes, Pennington praises Rabinowitz for staying fair. “Even if she didn’t like someone, if they did something positive, she would always acknowledge that,” she says. “She was a smart, smart woman. She knew what she was talking about.”

On Wednesday, Greenspoon released a statement about Rabinowitz. The statement says, “Due to her sudden and unexpected passing our family is just trying to process this enormous loss. Sam was beautiful, young, vibrant and very passionate about the community she built. She was a lover of animals and a talented make up artist who was devoted to her family and friends. She had a love for the law and an unbreakable moral code that showed in her work.”

Harley Jenn MC says, “I don’t think there will ever be a channel like her. I don’t think there will be anyone else in the space that will put herself out there like her. She was such a perfectionist. She would have me reread a paragraph from her video 30 times and then change one word. She set the bar so high for herself. Each video would have to be better and better and better, and it became very overwhelming. She set the bar so high in this community.”