Estée Lauder fired a senior beauty executive after he posted a racist meme to his social media account.
John Demsey worked for the national producer and marketer of beauty products for three decades, most recently as the company’s executive group president.
Demsey posted on his Instagram a cartoon parody of a Sesame Street book cover, showing Big Bird wearing a surgical mask as Mr. Snuffleupagus lays in bed sick, along with the title “My n***a Snuffy done got the ‘rona at a Chingy concert.”
The racial slur in the meme caused an uproar, and Demsey later deleted it from his page, Business Insider reports.
On Monday, the beauty enterprise released an announcement saying that Demsey’s termination followed his “recent Instagram posts, which do not reflect the values of The Estée Lauder Companies, have caused widespread offense, are damaging to our efforts to drive inclusivity both inside and outside our walls, and do not reflect the judgment we expect of our leaders.”
“Inclusion, diversity and equity are core to our company’s values and priorities globally. Furthermore, over the past two years, we have worked together as an organization to advance our approach to racial equity and have taken a hard look at where we can and should do better,” executive chairman William P. Lauder and CEO and president Fabrizio Freda said.
In a 2019 interview with Coveteur, Demsey said, “We embraced hip-hop culture at that time, with Mary J. Blige and Lil’ Kim. That was the very first time that a fashion brand, let alone a beauty brand, tapped into the seismic quake that was taking place all over the world. That’s what got it started. In 1999, in the number one song from TLC called ‘Unpretty,’ there was a lyric in the song that went ‘It doesn’t matter how much M.A.C. you wear’ [sic]. It had seeped into the popular culture. That was my lightning rod.”
On Friday, Demsey posted an apology to Instagram, saying, “There are not enough words to express my remorse and sorrow.”
“Not only did I hurt many people whom I respect, the terrible mistake that I made has undermined everything I have been working for since I began my career 31 years ago,” he continued.
Demsey, who was hired by Estée Lauder in 1991, had an annual salary of $9.6 million for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2021, the New York Post reports.
He will officially exit the company and enter retirement on March 4, according to an updated administrative report, NPR reports.
