- Emma Chamberlain rose to YouTube fame with viral vlogs, eventually collaborating with James Charles and the Dolan Twins to form the Sister Squad in 2018.
- Nearly a decade later, in October 2026, Emma unexpectedly encountered a fan waiting in line at James Charles’ Painted beauty pop-up in NYC.
- Here’s how Emma reacted to the coincidence—and Sister Squad mention in our good year 2026.
Before Emma Chamberlain was out here looking stunning on the Met Gala steps, she was one of the most popular creators in ye olden days of YouTube. As her vlogs brought in bigger audiences, she eventually collaborated with other big names on the platform, including James Charles and the Dolan Twins. Thus, the Sister Squad was born in 2018.
It’s been nearly a decade since Emma, James, Ethan, and Grayson got together for an outrageous collab, but we’ve finally got Sister Squad crumbs in our good year 2026 thanks to a (sort of) awkward run-in in New York City.
As James hosted a pop-up experience for his beauty brand, Painted, in New York from October 9 to 11, Emma happened to stumble upon it while interviewing people who were waiting in different lines throughout the city.
Aside from the coincidental Sister Squad situation, a girl waiting for James’ pop-up fully asked Emma if she knew what people were in queue for.
“Asking emma chamberlain about the sister squad cause someone has to do it,” the fan wrote alongside her TikTok video, which she posted on October 11.
Of course, chronically online fans (read: me) lost any ability to chill over a Sister Squad mention all these years later. So much so that they asked the girl who posted it to share the original, unedited clip so they could hear Emma’s reaction.
As Emma explained that she was looking for different pop-up lines to “investigate,” the fan said, “Well, it’s crazy that you pick this one, because do you know the Sister Squad?”
Emma had a delayed response before saying, “Yes,” to which the fan revealed she was waiting for James’ Painted pop-up.
In a separate video, the fan explained the interaction further, claiming that nobody else on the line recognized Emma or what her presence meant. She eventually struck up a conversation with the Chamberlain Coffee founder and said she “laughed about” her bringing up the Sister Squad.
“She starts laughing, and that’s when the video ends. And she, like, kind of steps away, and she comes back, and she was like, ‘No way!’” she said, adding that she thought her appearance was planned.
“I genuinely thought that, like, the Fucking Dolan twins were gonna pop out and that it was gonna be, like, a whole reunion,” the fan added, before later asking Emma where the twins were.
“I wish I knew,” Emma apparently said, per the fan’s description. When she was asked, “So you’re telling me the Sister Squad isn’t happening?” Emma jokingly responded, “Do I look like Santa Claus?”
Though the Squad reportedly had a public falling out after James’ drama with Tati Westbrook in 2019, it seems like there’s no bad blood with Emma, given how she handled this interaction. Nothing to see here, people!