John Galliano Apologizes: 'I Only Have Myself To Blame'

Update: Le Parisien reports that Galliano will be tried in criminal court for "public insults made against individuals based on their origin or their religious affiliation...made against three victims." He could be in court during the second trimester of the year and faces 6 months in prison and a fine of 22,500 euros ($31,200).

Previously: John Galliano released a statement on Wednesday regarding the events that began with his arrest last week and ended with his firing from Dior on Tuesday. According to WWD, the designer's words were sent out by the law firm Harbottle & Lewis. He makes no mention of his "I love Hitler" rant. He is said to be currently en route to rehab to treat alcohol problems.

The full text, as it appears on WSJ.com:

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.

Anti-semitism and racism have no part in our society. I unreservedly apologise for my behaviour in causing any offence.

Comments

[flufferpoodle]

12:43 AM on 03/06/2011

I'm starting to find the whole thing laughable. He's so drunk that he insults 4 people with anti-semitic remarks, yet none of the people are Jewish, except it comes out now possibly JG himself is part Jewish. C'mon, it's funny!

I mean, what Chinese guy gets offended if you call him the N- word? He'd just shake his head at the drunk and move away. But if you could make money by selling a tape of him calling a chinese guy the N-word, because the drunk is famous, then suddenly everyone takes it seriously. What a joke.

Honestly I think there are very few artists on this Huff Po site. I think if you asked a panel of artists about this episode, that they wouldn't even think twice about it. It would just be like "Oh, John, he's been drinking too much lately." The content of what he said would not even be part of the picture. The artistic brain is wired completely differently. That's why no-one understands us- - sniff. :(

Ha-ha. Asking an artist to behave in a rational way, especially drunk, is like asking him to join NASA and fly a rocket. Unless he's a polymath like Leonardo, who is even more rare, it ain't happenin.

So just back off and leave him alone.

[huffpostreader10000]

02:33 AM on 03/05/2011

Wow to be ARRESTED for ranting while INEBRIATED ??!!
Come ON!
And here I was, thinking the age of enlightenment started in Europe.

[Not2BeFooled]

12:04 AM on 03/05/2011

I wonder if this guy knows that the nazi's that he loves so much would have gassed him too. They weren't to fond of gay people.

[butchcliff]

08:13 AM on 03/05/2011

He has family Jewish roots as well.

[karen1p]

09:24 PM on 03/04/2011

......and yet we still can't get Dimon, Blankfein, et al up for any criminal charges? Unbelievable.

[Gigi 01]

05:50 PM on 03/04/2011

Please tell me that there are some people here who do not care about fashion designers and do not call him a ' genius ' please ?

[flufferpoodle]

12:16 AM on 03/06/2011

I don't think people are saying he should get a free pass because of what he has done for the world of fashion. The point is that often people of genius are like savants, they are highly gifted in some areas, and rewarded so highly for it that they often don't develop like normal people. Isn't there any area of life that you follow, wherein lie your heroes? Do you appreciate their gifts so much that you would try to understand the pressures on them, when they crack under those pressures?

[JPMac]

01:33 PM on 03/04/2011

Funny no mention here that this guy can go to jail for 6 months for say something stupid!!! For all the United States haters out there God Bless the Bill of Rights even though it give stupid people the right to be say stupid stuff!!!

[Crystalline]

06:39 PM on 03/04/2011

Seriously.. I can't believe this is the world we live in... Lighten up people.

[Gaia8]

09:15 AM on 03/04/2011

Lol, why even bother with PR now. It's too late for damage control Galiano, the "rant" is out there for everyone to see, without spin. True feelings spewed forward, he's entitled to his opinions, no matter how ignorant, and may be judged by them as well. That's that.

[flufferpoodle]

11:47 PM on 03/03/2011

To all you non-artists out there. Maybe I can answer a question for you.

Yes.

Yes, great favors are bestowed upon artistic geniuses. Smaller favors are bestowed upon lesser artists. Is this really news to you? Really?

These favors help mature artists and immature ones, just like your sports, science and business heros.

And the fact that you did not know or do not care who John Galliano is, is not a sign of your sophistication.

[Woody Stemms]

07:18 PM on 03/04/2011

Not a sign of sophistication, it's a sign of good taste.

[jimboy71]

11:19 AM on 03/05/2011

Those who use political correctness as an aesthetic measure have everything in common with fas/cists, in this one regard.

[pinkeyelemonade]

03:54 PM on 03/03/2011

It's interesting to note that every time a celebrity makes some sort of nasty comment, they suddenly despise such rhetoric two days later.

Wonder how this would have gone down if the woman didn't whip out her cell phone...

[EveAngel]

08:11 PM on 03/03/2011

Galliano would have gone back, sobered up, got himself together and then go back to work among Asians, Jewish, Blacks and Whites.

[levresamant]

03:05 PM on 03/03/2011

Anyone who looks and dresses like him is taken seriously?

[EveAngel]

08:11 PM on 03/03/2011

Hmm, all the editors at Vogue and many fashion designers all dress flamboyantly. so I'll let you figure it out.

[ber6964]

10:47 AM on 03/03/2011

Blather and blather and lie your face off when you've been caught!

[EveAngel]

08:12 PM on 03/03/2011

I guess you are so holier-than-thou and without fault . ya, right.

[CLSayles]

07:40 AM on 03/03/2011

Who would have thought ultra-gay fashion designers could be so nasty??

[Verytrueindeed]

06:59 AM on 03/03/2011

His statement sounds as insincere as I would expect it to from him. I am so glad that Dior has sacked him after his comments. Proves that they have zero-tolerance for these types of things, but it also helps clean out the garbage like Galliano.

[jimboy71]

11:22 AM on 03/05/2011

Dior sacked him because he was off the wagon hard, and this gave them the ability to do it without having to pay his severance. His comments were reprehensible, but nothing out of the ordinary. We all make regretful statements of one kind or another in our lives, and it is beyond RIDICULOUS that Dior is behaving in this fashion. The whole edifice is RIDICULOUS. As is your comment.

[Victoria-nola]

04:15 AM on 03/03/2011

The backstory seems to be that Galliano was insulted and threated for being gay, in other words a homophobic attack.

Many of the comments on this article are themselves homophobic attacks. As a queer person, I feel under attack in these comments, and I find the approval and allowance of them by HP's moderators to be vile and wrong. Would HP allow comments casting racial slurs?

[daviesmith84]

08:49 AM on 03/03/2011

So are you trying to justify what Galliano said? Do two wrongs make a right? Galliano was out of line with what he said, and he could have removed himself from the situation.

[Chad Wheeler]

02:43 PM on 03/03/2011

He was drunk- hardly in his right mind.

[Victoria-nola]

08:46 PM on 03/03/2011

I'm not defending Galliano. You've missed my point, which is that a homophobic attack was met with an anti-Semitic attack, and then the comments on the news items were rife with further homophobic attacks.

It's unfortunate that when Galliano felt his life was threatened he responded with anti-Semitism, which he might have grown up around and for the most part had not expressed in his life. Just like just about everyone grows up in a homophobic environment, many people grow up in an anti-Semitic environment. And just as with homophobia, it is what one chooses to act on that ultimately matters. Actions are what matter.

But in the subsequent outrage about Galliano's anti-Semitic rant, commenters seem to feel free to also cast homophobic slurs. Homosexuals were also rounded up systemically and slaughtered during WWII, at least they were once Rohm's BrownShirts were murdered one night.

All's I'm saying is, queer people know what it is to be terrified of people's prejudices, and those prejudices are all OVER the comments on this article.

[SukiTheCat]

11:19 AM on 03/03/2011

so the best way to combat a homophobic attack was to launch vile anti-Semetic slurs? Ridiculous.

[Victoria-nola]

08:38 PM on 03/03/2011

I'm not defending Galliano. I'm saying, the comments section is rife with homophobic slurs. Which it is.

[flufferpoodle]

10:43 PM on 03/03/2011

I'm assuming you've never been angry and black out drunk. If not, more power to you. But from the perspective of one who has been, stuff like this can happen. It does not mean that in the light of day you actually wish Jewish people to be gassed. It means that under the influence of an enormous amount of alcohol, you have lost good judgement and overreacted and escalated a negative situation.

Like someone said above, in a fight under these conditions you shoot your mouth off to kill and regret it the next day. It means he hasn't grown up and has a drinking problem.

If you are drunk and angry and someone's dog comes at you, you may know where to kick it to inflict maximum damage. It doesn't mean that you are anti-dog.

[cliffhammond]

04:08 AM on 03/03/2011

At some point, the holocaust game that the Europeans are playing is going to result in a backlash against Israel. Sending someone to prison for insulting a "minority" is a bit of an overreaction. So when are the Israelis going to do time in jail for anti-Palestinian remarks? Answer: never.

[drinne]

07:07 AM on 03/03/2011

You mean like - since the founding of Israel? You obviously don't follow the European press or read the Economist - Europe is extremely pro-Palestinian. Hell Palestine exists because Britian made promises to both the Arabs and the Jews and left the line fuzzy because they really weren't ever going to give the Jews a real space anyway. The entire middle east is arranged according to British Mandate during the early 20th as opposed to organic development.

And they boycott Israel and pursue criminal action against Israelis based on things that happen during occupation all the time.

However, they also have the Dreyfus affair and France has a problem with violent anti-semitic attacks agains both Jews and Muslims in the last 20 years. Muslims are semites too you know.

[GraphicMatt]

02:26 PM on 03/03/2011

What does this have to do with the Holocaust? What does this have to do with Israel? If an Israeli is in France and makes anti-Palestinian remarks to a Palestinian then that Israeli would have to answer to French law.

[EveAngel]

08:14 PM on 03/03/2011

i sense the law is only for those who say things that anger jewish people