Posted on 09/20/2005 1:49:21 PM PDT by doesnt suffer fools gladly
Hermes president apologizes on-air to Oprah for snub
The tabloid war between Oprah Winfrey and French luxury retailer Hermes International ended in a decisive victory for the US talk show diva Monday when the company's president of US operations apologized on-air.
Winfrey, who was recently named the most powerful celebrity in the US by Forbes magazine and is considered a cultural icon with an immeasurable influence over her millions of viewers, instigated a boycott after she was turned away from a Hermes store in Paris in June.
Tabloids were abuzz with the snub and Oprah's conviction that she was turned away because she was black.
A public apology by Hermes several days later merely fueled the flames because it implied she had tried bully her way into a store that had already closed.
"The store was in the process of being closed -- the store was very active," Oprah told her viewers on the opening show of her 20th season.
"The doors were not locked. My friends and I were standing inside the doorway, and there was much discussion among the staff about whether or not to let me in. That's what was embarrassing. I know the difference between a store being closed and a store being closed to me."
Winfrey, who rose from modest means to build a global media empire that spans books, magazines and movies, often brings her personal life into her broadcasts and had threatened in June to discuss the incident when her show resumed. On Monday, she tried to explain to her viewers why she made such a fuss.
"Shame on anybody for thinking that I was upset for not being able to get in to a closed store and buy a purse. Please. I didn't get to be this old to be that stupid," she said.
"Everybody's who has ever been snubbed because you were not chic enough or thin enough or the right class or the right color or whatever -- I don't know what it was -- you know that it is very humiliating."
However, Oprah lifted the boycott after Robert Chavez, the president and CEO of Hermes USA, told her Hermes has since introduced sensitivity training.
"I'd like to say to you that we're really sorry for all of those unfortunate circumstances that you encountered when you tried to visit our store in Paris," Chavez said.
"We really try to service all of our clients all over the world," he said. "It was an isolated incident. It is not who we are."
Winfrey, who earned 225 million dollars last year (186 million euros) has some 30 million US viewers for her chat show which is rebroadcast in more than 100 countries.
Everybody's who has ever been snubbed because you were not chic enough or thin enough or the right class or the right color or whatever -- I don't know what it was -- you know that it is very humiliating."
It only became humiliating when she decided to make a big butt deal about....
This is such bullsh*t. Oprah goes to the store a few minutes before closing time and they don't let her in. So of course, she pulls the Diva act.
She thinks that just because she is Oprah, they should have let her in to shop. Howard Stern was all over this today. I don't like Stern, but I found myself agreeing with him. (BTW, I was channel surfing and the discussion caught my ear...I don't listen to Stern).
She should be boycotting the French altogether, forever.
It wasn't a snub!
They were CLOSED!!!
Good Grief.....
It wasn't a snub!
They were CLOSED!!!
Good Grief.....
Her Majesty has accepted your abject apology, foolish businessman. Go now and sin no more.
Oprah,
If the doors weren't locked, why didn't you just walk in?
Or perhaps the doors had just finished being locked and the employees wouldn't open them for you...?
Either way, unless you believe that the store would have closed earlier if you had arrived earlier to deny you entrance this is about the store being closed, not about you being black.
That having been said, anytime a French anything is boycotted, it is a good day.
"It wasn't a snub!
They were CLOSED!!!"
The difference between a limosine liberal and a regular person. "Don't you know who I am?"
It irks the heck out of me when people apologize for things they shouldn't apologize for.
Who gives a crap?
She ASS-U-MED that it was because she was black or some other such thing... she failed to consider it was simply because the guy was an a-hole???
Oddly what she seem to be mad about is she didn't get that super rich treatment where they will hold open a closed story for them...so in a way she might be right, they treated her like an "anybody" and not a super rich celebrity bigshot "somebody"
At many very upscale stores the doors are locked all the time. The staff has to see you through the glass and determine whether they like your looks before they let you in to shop. In many cases if you don't look like you can afford the merchandise, they won't let you in. This is true in Manhattan, Beverley Hills, Palm Beach, London, and Paris--probably some other places too. My suspicion is that if Oprah was not all made up and styled the sales staff might not have recognized her and just assumed she was an ordinary black woman. After all, if they don't watch daytime American TV, how would they know she's one of the richest women in the world and could afford their goods? There were reports that they had been having trouble with North Africans (= blacks) committing crimes in the area.
Oprah spends a fortune to no longer look like a truly black woman. She spends enough $$$ on her face, hair, carcasse, image etc. to rebuild a good part of New Orleans, then she always has that race card ready to toss whenever she needs to fix the game.
While she denies that this was about her insufferable snobbery, it was about here super-arrogant, belligerant snobbery, nothing more.
She is a hideous embarrassment and the fact that she whined and played the race card to get her way and turn truth on its head is a loss for everyone and a loss for the truth.
Pure crap.
Anybody that is stupid enough to actually admit that she influences one thing in their lives, is, well...just damn stupid.
Cultural Icon?
Ha!
So is Porky Pig and Daffy Duck.
Bill Clinton, too, for that matter.
I'm sorry you feel that way. :)
$145 for a tie.
ROTF!!!!
..then she always has that race card ready to toss whenever she needs to fix the game.
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Oprah has done some very good things with her influence and money, but she does have a hard time managing her hard liberalism, especially when it comes to race...it just keeps popping out now and then...
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