Dior Fires Anti-Semite John Galliano

John Galliano, 50, known the world over as a talented and fearless designer, was fired by the house of Christian Dior today -- days after video (below) of him hating on Jews surfaced.

Mr Galliano's career had been hanging by a thread since last Thursday, when he was arrested after a couple complained that he had cast racist and anti-Semitic slurs on them. They filed for charges. Dior suspended Mr Galliano the following day, but came under international pressure on Tuesday to fire him from Natalie Portman, the Oscar winning actress who was signed to promote a Dior perfume. In a statement released in New York the star of the film Black Swan said she was "deeply shocked and disgusted" by the video. "As an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr Galliano in any way." Just hours later, Dior finally swung the axe. "Today, because of the particularly odious nature of the behaviour and words of John Galliano in a video made public this Monday, the Christian Dior house has decided to lay him off immediately and has begun dismissal procedures against him," it said a statement. In the video, shot on a mobile telephone in December, Mr Galliano can be seen blind drunk at La Perle bar in the trendy Marais district of central Paris. A woman's voice asks Mr Galliano, "Are you blond, with blue eyes?" Slurring his words, he replies: "No, but I love Hitler, and people like you would be dead today. Your mothers, your forefathers, would be all be gassed and dead." The two women he was referring to were Italian, not Jewish. Mr Galliano lost yet more credibility when a 48-year old woman came forward on Saturday to press for charges of anti-Semitism over an incident at the same bar in October. Paris prosecutors are expected to decide by the end of the week whether the designer will face trial over last Thursday's incident. Police questioned Mr Galliano and the couple for five hours on Monday, but have found no eyewitnesses to back up the couple's claims of anti-Semitism.
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According to French law, it's a crime to incite racial hatred. John's attorney plans to countersue the women who filmed his tired for defamation. Good luck with that.




Update: John is heading to rehab! Shocking, we know! According to the Times, he will seek treatment for alcoholic abuse at The Meadows, a facility in Wickenberg, Ariz., where where Elton John and Donatella Versace have been patients. He will face charges for "public insults towards an individual on grounds of their origin or religion ... following complaints from three people" in a Parisian court this spring. Through his lawyer, he issued this statement: "Since the events of last Thursday evening I have not been able to make any public comment on what took place based upon advice from my French lawyer. However, given the continuing delays at the French Prosecutor’s Office I should make my position clear. I completely deny the claims made against me and have fully co-operated with the police investigation. A number of independent witnesses have given evidence and have told the police that I was subjected to verbal harassment and an unprovoked assault when an individual tried to hit me with a chair having taken violent exception to my look and my clothing. For these reasons I have commenced proceedings for defamation and the threats made against me. However, I fully accept that the accusations made against me have greatly shocked and upset people. I must take responsibility for the circumstances in which I found myself and for allowing myself to be seen to be behaving in the worst possible light. I only have myself to blame and I know that I must face up to my own failures and that I must work hard to gain people’s understanding and compassion. To start this process I am seeking help and all I can hope for in time is to address the personal failure which led to these circumstances and try and earn people’s forgiveness. I have fought my entire life against prejudice, intolerance and discrimination, having been subjected to it myself. In all my work my inspiration has been to unite people of every race, creed, religion and sexuality by celebrating their cultural and ethnic diversity through fashion. That remains my guiding light."