Jameela Jamil slams L'Oreal for sacking black transgender model Munroe Bergdorf who spoke up against racism
British actress and model Jameela Jamil on June 4 shared Bergdorf’s tweets and called out L'Oreal for restricting comments on their social media after being accused of racial discrimination against its former employee.
Expressing its opinion about the ongoing Black Lives Matter, L'Oreal shared a post on Twitter that read, “Speaking out is worth it” soon after the tweet was shared, one of its former model Munroe Bergdorf publicly accused the brand of practicing racism.
Retweeting L'Oreal's original tweet she wrote, “Excuse my language but I am SO angry. FU*K YOU @lorealparis. You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy. With no duty of care, without a second thought." In the following tweets, she further accused the brand of using the issue as a PR opportunity. “Fu*k you. Fu*k your 'solidarity'. Where was my support when I spoke out? I'm disgusted and writing this in floods of tears,” she said. Bergdorf urged social media users to not let L'Oreal get away with this is they genuinely cared about Black Lives Matter movement.
Jamil’s tweet stated, “THIS GIANT corporation worth Billions also paid her £2.5k (NO I DIDN’T MISS ANY ZEROS...) for a year of use of her name and image in their exclusive campaign. In being called out for their mistreatment they’ve gone silent and just restricted comments on their social media.”
She further notes that the brand being silent only means they are being complicit with the issue and told her followers that she “begged them personally to help” by apologizing to Bergdorf. "Her black life didn’t matter to them. And in their silence they are explicitly saying it still doesn’t. Silence is Violence. I begged them personally to help, to make reparations to her and to be accountable and apologize. I am still waiting, 72 hours later, for a response," she tweeted.
“It would be so revolutionary for @LOrealParisUK to make this right, to be the example of accountability and responsibility to the marginalized people they gain so much from affiliating with,” Jamil said in another tweet.
Speaking in favor of Jamil and Bergdorf, several Twitter users have slammed L'Oreal for treating its employees with the utmost disrespect, a few drawing examples from their own experience of working with the brand.
While one of them wrote, “L'oreal don't seem to care about equality for all they preach about it (I got shortlisted for a job at their London HQ). They aren't supportive of the working class, having to attend early assessment days that require traveling to London at peak time. £160 I lost, £50 reimbursed.”
“If they had learned and grown they'd have gone back to Munroe *before this* and said 'We screwed up. We're sorry. Let's try again with that campaign and we'll pay you the same way we'd pay a white woman.' They're proving they've learned nothing,” added another.
L'Oreal was yet to respond to Jameela Jamil's comments when this report was published.