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Report: Shocking Claims Of Racism & Pornography In The Workplace Causes Former Black VP To Sue L'Oréal

Her complaints allegedly led to termination.

Makeup company giant L'Oreal is under the microscope after a former Marketing VP launched a lawsuit to sue the beauty company for some serious allegations which includes racial discrimination, wrongful termination, and a toxic workplace environment where a male exec allegedly watched porn during a meeting. 

Get ready for your jaws to drop—here’s what we know via a report on the Daily Mail.

According to the lawsuit obtained by the media outlet, the former L’Oréal employee Amanda Johnson climbed the ladder from an assistant vice president of digital marketing to a marketing vice president but had no idea that her promotion would lead to the ugly unveiling of racism and harassment.

“Johnson quickly learned the ugly truth about the beauty giant, including witnessing a male executive openly watching pornography during a business meeting; sex-fueled parties at luxury European hotels during work trips; and racist hostility from the highest levels of management,” an excerpt reads.

After filing an internal complaint to her boss Dan Bethelmy-Rada about being physically threatened by fellow Vice President Nicolas Krafft while in Europe, she was reassured the issue will be settled when she got back from vacation. 

This never happened. Johnson claims instead she was fired hours after she arrived back from vacation via a conference call due to “communications issues” and not being sufficiently present in the office.

 (Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Glamour)
(Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Glamour)

In the suit, Johnson also brings up, how Rada would, “host drunken parties, showing favoritism toward young gay male employees, during business trips. One night in Rome, Johnson said Rada told her to ‘go and flirt’ with a group of young male employees and bring them to Rada's hotel room.”

“Knowing about Rada's less than appropriate parties in his suite during business trips, Johnson told Rada that she was not comfortable making the request," said Johnson. "Rada admonished Johnson, stating, ‘You failed.’”

She also made the shocking claim, Rada also publicly viewed pornography on his cell phone during a meeting with other executives.

Johnson, who assisted the Matrix and Biolage brands understand how to better market professional hair care products to WOC, is suing for all earnings she would have received, as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

L’Oréal shared this in a statement to the Daily Mail regarding the allegations: 

Johnson’s lawyers fired back stating: “L’Oréal’s public response to Ms. Johnson’s complaint shows that the company holds underrepresented minorities to a different standard in all respects. L’Oréal again has wrongfully tried to discredit and punish the victim, an African-American woman, by choosing to accept a false version of events as told by a few white employees on its payroll."

Things that make you say, "hmm…"

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