14 DAY TRIAL // In February 2011, designer John Galliano was caught on camera saying he hated Jews because they were ugly and that he loved Hitler for gassing them. Right now, there’s trouble brewing in Israel over claims that he might be dressing the country’s contestant in this year’s Eurovision, the AP reports.
The brouhaha started sometime last week, when Moran Mazor, who will be representing Israel in the competition, told the press that she and her people have been talking to several designers for her dress, Galliano included.
She even made it sound as if she was partial to his creation, which triggered a harsh response from Yoav Ginai, an executive at the state-run Israel Broadcast Authority.
In a scathing open letter, he pretty much banned her from wearing Galliano “under any circumstance,” because of the things he said during the drunken rant and because he did not seem sincere when he apologized for it afterwards.
This was the final straw that broke the camel’s back – and national uproar ensued.
However, a rep for the disgraced fashion designer insists that he was never even in contact with Mazor or her people.
“Galliano's publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said Monday that claims by singer Moran Mazor that Galliano had agreed to design her dress were false, and that there had not been any ‘official correspondence’ between the singer's stylist and Galliano,” the AP reports.
Rosenberg stresses that confirmation of this comes from “John himself.”
In response, Mazor’s stylist says talks are taking place at a lower level: that is to say, she is in contact with some of Galliano’s people for a dress but she can’t reveal any names because of an NDA.
As we also reported back in 2011, after the rant, which took place in Paris and was posted online, Galliano was ditched from Dior and his own label, and he went to rehab.
Celebrities also rushed to dissociate themselves from him, while his fans did the same, perhaps not convinced by his promise that he did not mean what he’d said and that was the alcoholic in him raging.