Take note: Oprah Winfrey doesn't need an apology from the country of Switzerland regarding the instance of racism she claims she encountered during a recent trip. "I think that incident in Switzerland was just an incident in Switzerland," Oprah said at the premiere of her new film, Lee Daniels' The Butler last night. ICYMI—the incident she's referring to is one that took place in Zurich's Trois Pommes shop recently, involving a shop girl that Oprah claims refused to show her a $38,000 bag, before telling her "you will not be able to afford that."
"I'm really sorry that it got blown up," Oprah continued. "I purposefully did not mention the name of the store. I'm sorry that I said it was Switzerland...I was just referencing it as an example of being in a place where people don't expect that you would be able to be there."
After the reports of the incident broke, a spokesperson for the Swiss tourism office released an official apology, stating, "We are very sorry for what happened to her, of course, because we think all of our guests and clients should be treated respectfully, in a professional way." The owner of Trois Pommes also commented to the media, saying that it was a "misunderstanding."
More recently, the store clerk involved in the incident has spoken about as well, but only to deny that anything like that ever happened in Trois Pommes. Speaking to Swiss newspaper SonntagsBlick, the store clerk said, "I don’t know why she is making these accusations. She is so powerful, and I am just a shop girl...this is not true. This is absurd. I would never say something like that to a customer. Really, never. Good manners and politeness are the Alpha and the Omega in this business." The store clerk, who has not been named, also claims that she offered to show Oprah the bag:
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Meanwhile conspiracy theorists are doing their thing, and theorizing about conspiracies regarding the incident. John Nolte at right-wing site Breitbart.com, for instance, wrote in an article yesterday:
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Or, it could have been that she was sharing an experience that was relevant to the film during a press junket interview. You know, the logical explanation. EITHER WAY.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]
