|
Claim: Oprah Winfrey threw designer Tommy Hilfiger off her show when he announced, "If I knew that blacks and Asians were going to wear my clothes, I would have never designed them."
Status: False. Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2002]
Origins: Rumors that Tommy Hilfiger made a racist remark exploded onto the Internet in the fall of 1996 after a news article purporting to be from a Philippines tabloid began making the online rounds. These self-same rumors had been in circulation at least nine months earlier, but the appearance of this article brought them to critical mass. According to Cristina Peczon (author of the article), the revealing remark happened on CNN Style with Elsa Klensch, during an interview with both Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren on the latest fashion trends:
Hilfiger then supposedly butted in then with a comment, something like it is one thing for one's label to go
popular worldwide, but there are some people who just don't look well in "their" designer clothes. Hilfiger then allegedly named several Asian races, apparently saying that he preferred if "these people" wouldn't wear their line
Though many were up in arms about this article (there were calls for a boycott of Hilfiger products), no one was ever quite sure what the designer had said, who he'd said it to, or even which ethnic group he'd slammed. One version had him saying, "If I knew that blacks and Asians were going to wear my clothes, I would have never designed them." More colorful renditions had him making his shocking revelation on national TV and Oprah Winfrey then throwing him off her show. (Oddly enough, the same story has been told about Liz Claiborne since 1991, that Oprah threw her off the show after Liz claimed she didn't design for Black women as "their hips are too big." That didn't happen either. See our A 1997 newspaper article debunking the Hilfiger tale noted:
In one cybermyth, Hilfiger supposedly told style reporter Elsa Klensch of CNN that he didn't think Asians looked good in his clothes. Then, as the story morphed, he told Winfrey the same thing about Blacks, at which point she threw him off the set.
A 1999 article also carried denials from officials of the shows on which the incident was rumored to have taken place:
Yet representatives of both shows deny Hilfiger ever appeared as a guest.
"Tommy Hilfiger has never appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show," said Audrey Pass, a spokeswoman for Winfrey. "Hilfiger's never appeared on CNN Style with Elsa Klensch," said Kathy Park of CNN.
Oprah herself did what she could to quell this slander. On Monday,
So I want to just set the record straight once and for all. The rumor claims that clothing designer Tommy Hilfiger came on this show and made racist remarks, and that I then kicked him out. I just want to say that is not true because it just never happened. Tommy Hilfiger has never appeared on this show. READ MY LIPS, TOMMY HILFIGER HAS NEVER APPEARED ON THIS SHOW. And all of [the] people who claim that they saw it, they heard it
On 2 May 2007, the designer himself appeared
Oprah: Let's break this down. Tommy, in the 21 years that we've been on the air, have you ever been on the show before today?
Both Hilfiger and his company have steadfastly denied all forms of the rumor, and it has taken many. Depending on who you hear the whisper from, he slammed Asians, Filipinos or Blacks, on Oprah or Ricki Lake or BET News or Larry King Live or CNN Tommy: Unfortunately, not. Oprah: And when you first heard it, Tommy, what did you think? Tommy: I didn't believe it. ... Friends of mine said they heard the rumor. I said, 'That's crazy. That can't be. I was never on The Oprah Show. I would never say that.' And all my friends and family who know me and people who work with me and people who have grown up with me said that's crazy. Oprah: Well, did you ever say anything close to that? Where do you think this originated? Tommy: I have no idea. We hired FBI agents, I did an investigation, I paid investigators lots of money to go out and investigate, and they traced it back to a college campus but couldn't put their finger on it.
Tommy Hilfiger did not make the alleged inappropriate racial comments.
The company has answered the charges leveled against Hilfiger in its corporate FAQ,
which very clearly states that not only didn't he say what's been ascribed to him, he's also never been on Larry King Live, or CNN's Style with Elsa Klensch, and only in May 2007 was he ever on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Cyberdenials or not, the rumor has legs. Earlier I mentioned it had been around at least nine months prior to its Internet explosion in late 1996. A
Then there's the infamous disparaging "statement" the Parsons brothers and several others said they had heard that Hilfiger made about Blacks, particularly poor Blacks, wearing his clothes.
Hilfiger's being cast as a racist villain is especially unfortunate because his history as a designer shows him to be anything but. Adding color and movement to everyday clothes, his designs shot into popularity fueled by enthusiastic support from the black community which adopted his
As with all rumors, there are several variations, and no one can say where or when Hilfiger made the comments. One woman said a friend heard him say it on BET News. A clerk at Burdines said he heard it was on the Ricki Lake show.
As immediately satisfying as it is to believe the old Liz Claiborne tale has updated itself by attaching to a newer, fresher designer, there's another likely explanation that must also be considered. As Hilfiger's clothing became more and more popular, it increasingly became a target for the Pacific Basin knock-off specialists. Hilfiger's statements that people should foreswear Asian or Filipino bootlegs of his clothes because cheap copies don't look good on anybody could easily have been misheard or misunderstood so that they were later remembered as statements to the effect that Asians or Filipinos themselves should not wear Hilfiger designs as they would make his clothes look bad. Barbara "generalization GAP" Mikkelson Last updated: 2 May 2007 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2010 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
|
|
