Kirstie Alley slams Abercrombie honcho: ‘Your head is HUGE’
Kirstie Alley slammed Abercrombie honcho Michael Jeffries this week, taking personal shots at the chief exec in the wake of a media blast started by a story explaining why the clothing retailer wouldn’t stock items in sizes larger than, well, large.
In short, the company wants only cool kids coming through its doors.
“Dear CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch...you are not cute and your head is HUGE. You need to stop wearing A&F clothing...just not attractive enough,” Alley said in the first of a series of tweets Tuesday, adding, “and Dear Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, If I ever meet you at a party, don’t stand close to me. Your veneers are blinding & could take down a G6 [airplane]. and lastly Dear CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, arent you the same douche frog that ok’d THONGS for six y/o girls??”
But that wasn’t all.
The onetime “Fat Actress” star, who has openly dealt with her weight issues over the years, went on “Entertainment Tonight,” video above, to encourage folks of all sizes to stop shopping at A&F.
“I’ve got two kids in that [target] bracket, but they will never walk in those doors because of his view of people — forget women, his view of just people,” she said.
The dust-up started with a May 3 Business Insider story about Abercrombie, unlike its prime competitors, refusing to stock clothes in XL and XXL. The story resurfaced comments made by Jeffries to Salon in 2006, in which he said his business was built on sex appeal and therefore “we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”
“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he continued in the quote that went viral. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
The Abercrombie chief exec finally addressed the issue Thursday in a statement that stopped short of an apology, according to Money & Co. He said he regretted that his “choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense,” stating that the “7-year-old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context.”
Nevertheless, A&F “targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers,” he said, adding that the company was opposed to discrimination and bullying based on “race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics.”
(We’re guessing Alley’s huge-head comment would fall in that last category.)
Incidentally, the retailer’s reputation among 18- to 34-year-olds has tanked in the last two weeks, Business Insider reported Thursday.
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