So if you read my last blog, you know Charlie Sheen’s gone of the deep end. It can’t get any worse than his nonsensical rants, right? Wrong.
It’s been a week where even Christina Aguilera’s being arrested for public intoxication hardly made the news, so who else seems to have lost it? Dior’s star designer John Galliano.
The other night when I was watching the Oscar after party, the press was interviewing Natalie Portman. One reporter asked why, as the new face of Dior, she wasn’t wearing a Dior dress. Then, the reporter asked what Natalie thought about some anti-Semitic comments made by someone named John (I didn’t catch his last name).
Curious, I had to google it the next day. What I found was a video of John Galliano, Dior’s creative director for the past 15 years, taken in La Perle, a Parisian bar. During his rant, during which he was obviously drunk, Galliano made racist remarks towards a couple, telling them their ancestors would have been gassed. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also said “I love Hitler.”
Naturally, Dior issued a statement condemning the remarks and Galliano was fired today. Portman, who is was born in Israel, issued a statement saying she was “shocked and disgusted by the video.” The Academy Award winning actress added, “as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way.”
Galliano’s lawyer, Stephanie Zerbib, said that her client was verbally attacked, did not make any insults (maybe she said this before the video was released) and Galliano filed a suit against the couple for defamation last Saturday.
In addition to just the shock and horror of the video, it has thrown Dior into a quite tizzy. Galliano’s autumn/winter collection was set to be presented at Fashion Week this Friday. Rumors are that Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy will replace Galliano at Dior.