Romeo Lacoste Denies Allegations He Groomed Underage Girls for Illegal Sex

Romeo Lacoste is a tattoo artist who's grown his fame over the last four years by tattooing celebrities like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. On Friday, a Twitter account called @yellowchairr started posting videos and screenshots of alleged interactions Lacoste had with women as young as 14 or 15 years-old while he was in his mid-twenties.

Text messages from 2016 purportedly show Lacoste asking girls, who mention they are underage, sexually-charged requests like if they'd imbibe his semen with a shot of alcohol and how they should "try to be slutty." Soon, other women started to come forward and shared accounts of similar interactions with Lacoste. Twitter user @ultrahoney claims she was groomed by him, and that she and Lacoste were in a relationship when she was "14 to 17" and he was "19 to 22" in Jacksonville, Florida.

"He was extremely manipulative/ emotionally draining," she wrote. "He took advantage of our age difference (sic) used guilt to coerce me into doing things I didn't want to do."

Daniel "Keemstar" Keem interviewed @ultrahoney on his YouTube DramaAlert show, where she confirmed her side of the allegations against Lacoste. "It feels aggravating to know that he is still doing that when he is almost 30," Honey told Keem. After the interview, she deleted most of her tweets and wrote that she "does not want to involve herself in this any further." After the DramaAlert was released, Lacoste contacted Keemstar and the pair spoke in a 30-minute interview.

In the interview, Lacoste does not deny most of these claims. He says that in 2016 he was still "new" to the concept of fame and these people girls were "throwing themselves" at him. When Keem followed up by saying "you are the adult" he denied responsibility. "I am very well respected in the community, I've tattooed every YouTuber from across the map," Lacoste says. "In my four years at the tattoo shop, I've never had a complaint from a girl whatsoever."

Lacoste and his girlfriend, Gigi Angelica Marie, set their Twitter and Instagram accounts to private over the weekend.In the DramaAlert interview, Lacoste explained their relationship is experiencing difficulties because of these accusations, mainly because they are said to have occurred while he and Marie were dating.

Most content creators like the Dolan Twins, Ninja and Ariana Grande who have tattoos from Lacoste have remained silent on social media about the accusations (though the Dolan Twins have unfollowed Lacoste on Instagram).

The social media sphere has been dominated by a story of Shane Dawson allegedly ejaculating on a cat, burying the Lacoste scandal. Some on Twitter have been quite vocal about their feelings about both.

Newsweek has contacted Lacoste and his tattoo shop and will update this story when they respond.