Here are some photos of Oprah Winfrey at last night’s LA premiere of The Butler. I’ve really liked Oprah’s styling for her press tour – this is the best she’s looked in a while. I like the big, wild hair, I love all of her pink and fuchsia dresses. She looks really good. Anyway, people are still talking about Oprah’s recent admission that a clerk at a Swiss boutique wouldn’t even show her a purse that she wanted. I was surprised by the anti-Oprah sentiments unleashed in that post, quite honestly. While the clerk might not have been motivated by racism, I believe Oprah’s story and I think something shady and bitchy went down in that store. But Oprah kind of wants it to be over. On the red carpet last night, Oprah told the BBC:

“I think that incident in Switzerland was just an incident in Switzerland… I’m really sorry that it got blown up. I purposefully did not mention the name of the store. I’m sorry that I said it was Switzerland…. It’s not an indictment against the country, or even that store. It’s just one person who didn’t want to offer me the opportunity to see the bag.”

Winfrey also explained the context surrounding why she spoke out about the incident.

“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,” she said. “Nobody’s gonna call me the N-word to my face unless they’re a thug on Twitter or Facebook. It doesn’t show up that way. It shows up for me differently: I’m in a store…and they make an assessment based upon the way I look and who I am.”

[From BBC]

Yeah. I think she’s right. She didn’t name names or call for a boycott of the boutique or anything. She was asked a question in an interview and she told the story from her perspective. It doesn’t help matters that the people at the boutique are still freaking out or that certain European outlets are playing this like “Oprah says all Europeans are terrible racists!!!”. It also doesn’t help that the people at the boutique keep changing their story.

The sales assistant who refused to show U.S. talkshow billionaire Oprah Winfrey a luxury handbag costing nearly £25,000 claims the superstar lied about what happened in the luxury Swiss boutique where she works. Speaking anonymously to Sunday newspaper SonntagsBlick, the Italian bag lady said she felt ‘powerless’ and in the grip of a ‘cyclone’ after Winfrey went on TV in America to claim she had been the victim of racism.

Winfrey was in Switzerland in July when she walked into the Trois Pommes boutique in Zurich looking for a handbag to match the outfit she was going to wear to old friend Tina Turner’s wedding. She claims the sales assistant refused to show her the black crocodile leather bag because – seeing a black woman – she automatically assumed she would not be able to afford it.

Now the saleslady has hit back, stating: ‘I wasn’t sure what I should present to her when she came in on the afternoon of Saturday July 20 so I showed her some bags from the Jennifer Aniston collection. I explained to her the bags came in different sizes and materials, like I always do. She looked at a frame behind me. Far above there was the 35,000 Swiss franc crocodile leather bag. I simply told her that it was like the one I held in my hand, only much more expensive, and that I could show her similar bags.’

‘It is absolutely not true that I declined to show her the bag on racist grounds. I even asked her if she wanted to look at the bag. She looked around the store again but didn’t say anything else. Then she went with her companion to the lower floor. My colleague saw them to the door. They were not even in the store for five minutes.’

She emphatically denied ever saying to Winfrey: ‘You don’t want to see this bag. It is too expensive. You cannot afford it.’

The saleslady went on: ‘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. I don’t know why she is making these accusations. She is so powerful and I am just a shop girl. I didn’t hurt anyone. I don’t know why someone as great as her must cannibalize me on TV. If it had all taken place as she claimed, why has she not complained the next day at the wedding of Tina Turner with Trudie Goetz, my boss? She was there also at the Turner wedding as a guest.’

‘I don’t understand it. I spoke to Oprah Winfrey in English. My English is okay but not excellent, unfortunately. I didn’t know who she was when she came into the store. That wouldn’t have made any difference if I had. We work really hard to greet all the people who come into the store with the same level of respect and treat them all equally. If someone asks me whether he or she can see an article, I always present these. Because that person is a potential buyer. And my job is to sell it. I’m glad if I can sell an article. It is a reward for me, if I can sell a nice piece. This means that I’m good at my job.’

She has worked in the store for five years, says 50 per cent of the clientele come from abroad and that a bag costing nearly £25,000 is sold ‘only a few times a year.’ Asked what she would say to Oprah now she added: ‘I would apologize and say it was all a misunderstanding. I surely did not intentionally want to insult Ms. Winfrey. I hope this nightmare ends soon.’

[From The Mail]

Yeah, you know what happens next? The shopkeeper and salesclerk and several media outlets will start saying that Oprah is the racist one. I think the melodramatic story of the poor Italian sales lady who would have shown her other bags besides the expensive bags… well, it seems like she’s just trying to put a positive spin on an incident that Oprah read as racism but was probably more like pure snobbishness. Or anti-Americanism. Or sizism. Or all of the above.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.