she talked about it yesterday
NY Post
OPRAH: HERMES EMBARRASSED ME
By DON KAPLAN
OPRAH Winfrey calmly socked it to Hermes yesterday, recalling her humiliation when she was barred from entering the fashion house's Paris store earlier this summer.
"My friends and I were standing inside the doorway, and there was much discussion amongst the staff as to whether or not to let me in — that was what was embarrassing," Winfrey told viewers on the debut episode of her show's 20th season.
"They took my name, they had a discussion about it, then they came back and say, 'no.' "
Winfrey described the situation as Robert Chavez, the president of Hermes' U.S. division, sat next to her and apologized.
Chavez, who apologized to Oprah earlier this summer when she called him to complain, blamed the incident on one of the store's more "rigid" staffers and said the store had been in the process of closing to host an event when Winfrey arrived.
At the time, The Post's Page Six reported that Winfrey had been turned away from the store supposedly because it had been "having a problem with North Africans."
While addressing viewers yesterday, Winfrey alluded to the possibility that she may have been turned away because she is black and then chided Chavez when he said the woman who turned her away did it because, "Honest to god, she didn't know who you were."
"This wasn't even about, 'Do you know who I am,' " Oprah said. "I wasn't trying to play that celebrity card."
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