Guerlain Perfume Heir Convicted For Making Racist Comments A French court convicted longtime perfume maker Jean-Paul Guerlain of making racist insults on national television and fined him Thursday €6,000 ($8,000). The 75-year-old Guerlain, an heir to his family’s cosmetics empire, provoked anger among French minorities with the comments in a 2010 interview on France-2 television. He used a French word for black people in a derogatory way as he described how hard he worked to create one of the company’s most famed perfumes. Several anti-racism groups filed legal complaints, and protests were staged in front of the Guerlain store on the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris. Some called for a boycott of Guerlain products. Guerlain apologized to France’s black community during the trial, calling it an “imbecilic” remark. He was convicted in a Paris court. The judge did not sentence him to any prison time, though the charge could have allowed a sentence of up to six months behind bars. “I am from another generation,” he said during the trial, so part of the remark was “a common expression at the time.” He also said he did so during a TV interview because he “wanted to make the journalist laugh and I regret it.” “I was anything but racist,” he said, standing before the court with the help of crutches. Guerlain is the great-great-grandson of the founder of the Guerlain cosmetics company, now owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. LVMH was embarrassed last year when designer John Galliano — who worked for LVMH subsidiary Christian Dior — was convicted of anti-Semitic comments. All he got was a measly $8K fine??? SMH. Source More On Bossip! Watch Your Hands! Celebrities Caught Grabbing Big Handfulls Of Cakes In Public For Discussion: Trayvon Martin’s Alleged Twitter Page Exposed… Do You Think He Should Be Judged By His Tweets? Let’s Celebrate Mariah Carey’s Birthday By Looking At Her Hottest Looks And Past Flings! Pon The Replay: More Of Our Favorite New Playmate Of Color Leola Bell’s Twitpics
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SMH: 75 Year-Old Guerlain Perfume Heir Convicted In France For Making Racist Comments Towards Black People
