John Galliano Arrested For Alleged Assault & Making Anti-Semitic Remarks

Update: Women's Wear Daily reports that Galliano has been suspended at Christian Dior, writing, "In a brief statement, Dior president and chief executive officer Sidney Toledano said the fashion house has a policy of zero tolerance regarding racism and anti-Semitism. The statement said the suspension would remain in force until the results of a police investigation."

Previously: Designer John Galliano, who helms Christian Dior's house, was briefly arrested in Paris on Thursday night for alleged assault and making anti-Semitic remarks, the AFP reports.

The incident occurred at a cafe in the Marais district where Galliano started yelling at a couple. A police source told the AFP, "For the moment we don't know what led him to address the couple. We don't yet know if they knew each other or not."

Another police source told the Telegraph, "Witnesses said [Galliano] swore heavily, using anti-Jewish insults, before attacking a couple. Both have provided witness statements, as have a number of other people at the bar, including staff."

However, a different source recounted another story to Vogue UK: "We had a table at La Perle and John Galliano sat next to us. He spoke to a couple at a nearby table to say 'Cheers' and they insulted him. An argument started and the police came, so Galliano's bodyguard suggested that they should go to the police station to sort it out. He wasn't 'busted' aggressively by police, it was very quiet and peaceful. I definitely didn't hear him say anything anti-Semitic, or against any religion, it was all very calm."

Galliano was then taken back to the police station for a sobriety test and was determined to be slightly over the legal limit. According to Reuters, police accompanied him home and filed no charges, and, "One policeman said the outburst was prompted by stress ahead of fashion week, which starts next Monday and at which Dior's show is always in the spotlight."

Galliano was also in the spotlight this week after being announced as Kate Moss' wedding dressmaker.

Comments

[Krisgi]

05:46 AM on 03/12/2011

This is such a non-story.

[flufferpoodle]

01:23 AM on 03/02/2011

On the other hand , maybe they drove him to it. 12 shows a year? Are you kidding me. One a month? ( Yeah math skills) That's insane! No matter what you think of fashion, that's an immense workload.

It could have been displaced anger at his bosses. He looked relieved at the cop shop.

[PhineasGage730]

02:35 PM on 03/12/2011

Never knew stress can make you h@te Jews.

[SkeeBee]

08:17 PM on 03/12/2011

Yah!!
OMG!!
Having to put on ONE show a month!
And then get paid like he does?!?!
I TOTALLY feel sooooo bad for this dooooooosh baaaaaag,

[templeofdoom]

01:44 PM on 03/01/2011

It's funny how clued in the Police Officer was about the stresses of the fashion industry.

[Lindstr7]

01:29 PM on 03/01/2011

Drunk or not....that hitler video is horrifying. Even if he was just being entirely cheeky around his closest friends....it sends chills up the spine. On another note, big brother is watching your every move.

[Forthback]

01:24 PM on 03/01/2011

I'd like the french police to be that tolerant with its own average people.

[HannaSchmitz]

12:13 PM on 03/01/2011

there is a video that shows it differently.

[Yank in France]

02:49 PM on 02/28/2011

Just in from France, the police have just in from Paris: NONE OF MS BLOCH's WITNESSES HAVE BACKED UP HER STORY, according to police officials who interrogated the witnesses in question.

For those who speak French:

"Aucun des témoins auditionnés par la police n'a confirmé que le créateur de Dior John Galliano avait tenu des propos antisémites jeudi dans un bar parisien, selon une source proche de l'enquête citée par l'AFP."

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2011/02/28/97001-20110228FILWWW00645-galliano-aucun-temoin-ne-confirme-police.php

As it turns out, initial media reports referring to Ms Bloch as Jewish were wrong. 

So score on big one for Galliano.

However, a fellow poster has just sent me a video of Galliano totally inebriated in a Paris bar where he said something to the effect that Hitler was great. The guy was so drunk in the video that he slurred his words as if he were drunk all the time, no different from a drunker homeless person in the subway.

As one French poster noted, he appeared to have been provoked in the video by the person taking the video and his friends.

I don't have the video with me, but you can find it easily by googling it.

After you see it however, you are likely to ask why in heaven's tarnation is this story WORLD NEWS??!

[sheherezade]

03:22 PM on 02/28/2011

Well, he's a celebrity and will have a show next week or so...

The video was on TV, too, a bit longer, apparently the guy in the video didn't like what the lady was wearing or her hairdo and that took him to strange line of thought. Maybe a case of 'in vino veritas'? I mean if I get that drunk I usually fall asleep...

[Monrocsol]

12:12 PM on 03/01/2011

Maybe he can be a judge on Project Runway.

[Shewolf68]

12:47 PM on 03/01/2011

Hello Yank...So I had to come back for a final comment now tat the video is out there and this apparently wasn't an isolated incident. So I suppose I should be outraged by now by his comments.

So I feel like I was right about him in that he didn't like being mocked and not found fabulous enough. Seems a shame too for a creative person to have to go to jewish insults to be amusing and yet not funny and insulting. It's like a renown florist who uses babies breath when creatively stumped!

As for your question why it's world news? Mostly just because this fey dope does/did actually have influence on the styles/fashion/ direction or fashion throughout the world. What starts out "Haute" eventually trickles down to the masses. So knock him down and they will put another designer in his place; and he'll get backed and open his own house. This won't hurt too much other than his over inflated pride and bank account. But I think those are most likely the 2 places he'll feel it! Sounds pretty appropriate to me...now anyway!

As an aside, I do find it strange that it seems like the only place where "Reaganomics" works is in fashion. it figures doesn't it.

[Yank in France]

03:36 PM on 03/01/2011

Hi Shewolf,

It is always a pleasure to hear from you.

Yes, Galliano has some serious problems, but I don't know what to say about the guy. Is he truly anti-semitic? For many of my Jewish friends, the hurtfulness of his outbursts are more than enough to answer the question, which is understandable. We don't need that kind of garbage talk, after all the suffering such thoughts have caused in the past.

But unless I am mistaken, Galliano just threw around the Hitler word, like some politically illiterate people do when they are angry at people. He was drunk as Hell. That does NOT excuse him, and I can understand why LVMH wants to separate him from their image. But I sincerely hope that those outbursts did not truly represent anti-semitic feelings, like a number of Jewish colleagues have said in the press, and that he GETS HELP.

One last point about the video. The people in it were obviously egging on a hopelessly inebriated man. The woman's cackling voice and those of others clearly shows that they were having FUN at some drunk's expense.

[ibsteve2u]

01:31 PM on 02/28/2011

I suppose I could make myself anti-Semitic if I could just figure out how to regress to being two years old...back to when I was all about "Me!" and only "Me!" and further knew that I was without flaw and so capable of judging all others. Of course, I'd also have to have whatever part of your brain doesn't like to see others suffer - that part that gives you empathy - excised...I don't ever recall delighting in the pain of others, which seems to me to be an essential desire in order to achieve true success in bigotry.

Curiously, that is the same path I'd take should I desire to become a Republican.

[Ohene]

10:04 AM on 02/28/2011

All these guy have pieces of Hitler in them. Who needs a Hitler worshipper to dress him or her? Galliano, GO AWAY and have a nice time with Hitler's rant.!

[falco]

08:28 PM on 02/28/2011

Wonder if he realises Hitler would have sent him to the gas chamber....

[HannaSchmitz]

12:14 PM on 03/01/2011

true the n a z i' s gassed freaks

[thetruthhoits]

02:02 AM on 02/28/2011

Okay, he supposedly said something deeply offensive. HOWEVER, it is a tad annoying that there is one particular group of people who are treated with special kid gloves. I would throw Galliano away if he called someone a dirty Catholic face, a dirty Muslim face...but the world doesn't seem to treat these insults equally.

[traveller6102]

08:57 PM on 03/01/2011

There is a definite reason why the European Union has various hate speech laws. I suggest you buy a history book before you make your superficial analogies.

[americawasgreatonce]

01:05 AM on 02/28/2011

The nit was juiced.

[Michael II]

12:02 PM on 02/28/2011

Seriously juiced.

[AcademicFreedom]

04:09 PM on 02/27/2011

Bill Maher makes anti-Catholic remarks and he is lauded on HP.

[thetruthhoits]

01:57 AM on 02/28/2011

He also makes anti-Muslim and Arab remarks.

[Somali]

04:36 AM on 02/28/2011

All the time!

[eva07]

06:50 AM on 02/28/2011

He makes remarks anti-religion, anti-women, anti-whoever remarks, he is a comedian, that is what he does..

[EagleFliesInSky]

11:28 AM on 02/27/2011

No charges filed. End of story.

[Yank in France]

02:07 AM on 02/27/2011

We still do not have the lowdown on the drunken Galliano versus drunken Jewish woman confrontation in Paris (really top world news apparently as it was even reported in Spain!), but this story reminds me of an experience I had at a party in New York City about 20 years ago.

As I was talking with some friends and meeting new people, I heard some people talking about Israel and the Palestinians. I ventured that the Palestinian cause had not received a fair hearing in America.

The response of one Jewish young man was to argue very loudly with me, and when he saw that his really crude arguments were turning off the people around him ("the Palestinians are animals", etc.), he started SHOUTING at the top of his lungs that I support HITLER. He actually started arguing LOUDLY so that everyone in the room of about 80 people could hear against Nazism and the Holocaust, as if I were defending the Holocaust, which of course is ridiculous. As a progressive, I have always identified with the victims of the Holocaust and have always opposed all forms of racism!

But people all around starting looking at us, as I tried to calm him down. Obviously I was not going to get into a shouting match with him, because I did not want to destroy the party and piss off friends and others. He, however, had no qualms on that score and just kept on shouting and pointing his finger at me. As a result, I was forced to retreat back with my other friends. 

Fortunately, and to my surprize, the New York crowd took the incident in stride, but it really rattled me. As such, I have always taken a much more cautious approach to talking about Israel in public places, at least in America.

So the belligerent loudmouth and slanderer actually won the day.

I wonder if others have had similar experiences?

[AcademicFreedom]

04:16 PM on 02/27/2011

I had a similar situation occure a few years ago related to a discussion of the number of people killed in the holocaust; particularly relating to roughly 2 million non-Jewish Poles. It appeared to me that many wished that the holocaust not be allowed to be remembered as impacting a broader group of people. I also was slammed down when I made the point that the reason that northern Poland does not have the same high percentages of Catholics as southern Poland, was that during WW2 the Germans killed-off Catholic Poles and allowed Germans to have their land. And, that the "left loved" Sweden had done the same thing to northern Poland years earlier. Anyway .... there appears to be a very heavy "our thang" component to the holocaust.

[Yank in France]

04:00 AM on 02/28/2011

Thanks AF for your response.

I am sure others have experienced similar harassment by Israel's supporters.

But why am I bringing this topic up here on the Galliano article?

Simply because I wonder, like I do, if it is normal, much less desirable, for a bar incident like this to hit the international news media with such abandon?

This story is being covered throughout the Western world and perhaps far beyond, reaching billions of people.

Does ANYONE HERE believe this story would have ever gained so much traction if it involved an Australian and Aborigene or a Briton and an Irishman?

Or what about an Israeli man/woman calling a Palestinian an ANIMAL or worse?

And why is only Ms Bloch's version of the incident reported, when other eyewitnesses say that Galliano did not use any anti-semitic language at all?

[BcemXAHA]

08:25 PM on 02/27/2011

What is your question exactly? You're actually asking people to let you know or share whether they came across confrontational Jews?

Why would you assume that anyone should believe you to begin with when you're prancing about these fora slandering people on regular basis? You know making claims that they support only Jewish settlements in the West Bank? and when asked to provide a link or proof your bizarre allegation you vanish as if you're deaf and blind!

[thetruthhoits]

02:00 AM on 02/28/2011

BcemXaha-
Do you have experience with this poster in other threads? Otherwise I'm sorry but you're not making much sense.

[Yank in France]

04:05 AM on 02/28/2011

I am not slandering you at all, my dear BcemXaha, but only pointing out an anamoly: You almost EXCLUSIVELY limit yourself to Israel-related threads where you ALWAYS defend those who support more settlement building or, more SLEAZILY, claim that settlement building with its consequential expulsion of Palestinians from homes, is just one more issue on the negotiating plate.

For the umpteenth time, I ABHOR anti-semitism and condemn those who engage in hate speech on a regular basis here, but I wonder if there is not a connection between the slippery hate speech practiced by people such as your august person against Palestinians and rising anti-Jewish sentiment?

[RoBrGo]

07:33 PM on 02/26/2011

Looks and sounds like a scene from The Graduate, n'est pas?