A week ago, Jennifer Lopez was in Istanbul, Turkey for a stop on her international tour. Jennifer had some free time, so she went shopping at a high-end shopping center, Istinye Park. She apparently tried to enter the Chanel boutique, but a security guard prevented her from even entering the store. In all of the reporting with this story, absolutely no one has said that Jennifer’s behavior was weird or arrogant or anything. She basically just shrugged, said “no problem” and went shopping at several other stores. The Chanel employees realized who their security guard had turned away, and they found J.Lo and asked her to come shop at their store, but she refused. She still has not said one word about the incident on social media, her people haven’t issued a statement, nothing. But according to Rob Shuter (eyeroll), Chanel corporate is super embarrassed that this happened.
According to Rob Shuter’s exclusive report, insiders are saying the incident is “deeply embarrassing” for Chanel. A source told the outlet that Lopez was “calm and gracious” throughout the interaction with the security personnel. Moreover, high-ranking individuals related to the Wertheimer family issued a private apology to the A-lister for her experience.
The insider claimed that the Chanel owners were “horrified” upon learning about the incident. The source added, “Jennifer Lopez is not just a celebrity — she’s a global brand. Turning her away wasn’t just rude. It was bad business.”
After the incident, Chanel’s staff members reportedly approached Lopez to invite her into the establishment. However, she not only declined their requests, but allegedly went on to spend “thousands of dollars” at rival fashion houses, namely Celine and Beymen. Sources claimed that this was her way to make a point. However, the insider clarified that Lopez had “no hard feelings over the incident.” They continued, “But make no mistake — the message was received. Loud and clear.”
As of this writing, Lopez and Chanel have yet to address the matter publicly. Sources, however, told Shuter that the French fashion brand preferred giving the singer a private apology over speaking about it openly.
I would imagine that Jennifer probably did get an apology from Chanel corporate, and probably some apologies from people associated with this particular shop. Again, she’s not going on some anti-Chanel crusade – she felt slighted, she spent her money elsewhere, and she kept it moving. My question is… should Chanel publicly apologize to her, or is that too much? It’s not like she was turned away by the ghost of Karl Lagerfeld himself, you know? It was just a rude security guard who didn’t recognize her. I think a private apology (if it happened) is probably sufficient.
Also: J.Lo wasn’t the only person to get poorly treated by Chanel security or staffers in the shop. According to Page Six, this particular store has terrible online reviews and tons of people have complained about the security guards.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Photocall for ‘Unstoppable’ at 55 Broadway Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: London, United Kingdom When: 07 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
- Photocall for ‘Unstoppable’ at 55 Broadway Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: London, United Kingdom When: 07 Nov 2024 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
- Celebrities at the 2024 Governors Awards at Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 17 Nov 2024 Credit: Starface Photo/Cover Images **UK AND USA RIGHTS ONLY**
- Celebrities attend the ‘Good Night And Good Luck’ broadway opening night at Winter Garden Theatre in New York City Featuring: Jennifer Lopez When: 03 Apr 2025 Credit: Darla Khazei/INSTARimages
- 2025 American Music Awards press room at Fontainebleau Las Vegas Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Las Vegas, Nevada, United States When: 26 May 2025 Credit: Judy Eddy/Cover Images
- 2025 American Music Awards press room at Fontainebleau Las Vegas Featuring: Jennifer Lopez Where: Las Vegas, Nevada, United States When: 26 May 2025 Credit: Judy Eddy/Cover Images
I love that she shrugged and was like, “I’ll give my THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AND WORLDWIDE NAME RECOGNITION to some other brand, I guess.” JLo fan or not, that’s pretty awesome. Also, weirdly mirrors that scene in Selena
It’s giving “big mistake! Huuuge!” and I love it. No drama, just moving on to another store happy to take her money.
I agree with the commenters in yetserday’s post that she was likely not recognized by the guard and thus turned down for shopping while brown.
And JLo’s quiet refusal to further engage with them is all the more powerful bc if she’d accepted their offer to make an exception for a *famous* brown woman, Chanel still gets away with aggressive customer profiling tactics based on race and appearance in general. Instead JLo made them realize some of the potential harm from this BS racism.
So all this fuss on the part of Chanel afterwards after just sounds to me like “oops, in our haste to turn away any Latina woman to gate keep our brand/business, we accidentally harmed our brand by turning away a world famous musician,” rather than any sincere reflection on why profiling of potential customers is actually bad form, racist, etc.
Instead of an apology directly to JLo via the public (though if JLo wants one, that’s her call so good for her!) I’d love to see a public apology from Chanel that addresses this aspect: their intentional aggressive profiling of customers with practices and policies rooted in racism.
This has nothing to do with this story, so I am being petty. But those brown leather gloves are giving ‘tiny baby hands’, haha!!
I doubt she was turned away because she’s “brown.” JLo is quite pale and many shoppers in Istanbul have much darker skin color.
Many luxe stores in the US (Tiffany, Balenciaga, some Guccis, et al) limit the number of people allowed inside at a time & the shop was probably “full.” I’m a pale natural blond & I’ve had to wait outside for others to exit.
IF the guards had recognized her, they might have made an exception.
In my experience, poor choices and harmful behavior from corporations comes from the top down.
Sure, any organization can have employees that don’t perform as they should. But when it’s not just occasional random incidents, it is probably coming from and tolerated by management from the top down.
It pains me, because I’d like to admire Coco Chanel, but her history with fascism and Nazism precludes that, and makes me wonder if the racism displayed by incidents like this is endemic in Chanel’s corporate culture & leadership all the way back to Coco herself.
Long shot, but I think not only wasn’t she not recognized by the security guard, but she was also turned away, because she was wearing slippers. Turkish culture is very ‘loud, when it comes to fashion’. You have to look rich, all the time
Maybe Chanel shouldn’t be turning anyone away. I can’t stand these snotty brands who create fake drama to make their brands seem more exclusive.