After more than three decades at one of the world’s largest cosmetic companies, Estée Lauder announced it has terminated senior executive John Demsey after he posted a racially offensive meme on Instagram last week.
Demsey, who served as the company’s executive group president, will leave the company and retire on March 4, according to a recent regulatory filing.
In a statement released Monday, the cosmetics company said that Demsey’s firing was a result of his “recent Instagram posts, which do not reflect the values of the Estée Lauder Companies” — saying his posts caused “widespread offense.”
“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,” said executive chairman William P. Lauder and CEO Fabrizio Freda.
“Together we are making progress against our commitments to our employees, our partners, and consumers,” the company adds.
Estée Lauder said Demsey was informed he must “leave the company, effective this week.”
As first reported by The Wall Street Journallast week, one of Demsey’s Instagram posts on his personal account featured a meme of a Sesame Street parody book cover. In an article by Insider, the meme referred to one of the characters using the N-word, saying he “done got the ‘rona at a Chingy concert;” the “rona” referring to the COVID-19 coronavirus.
