"Hermes, the high-end designer boutique, publicly apologized this week for denying Oprah, the TV queen, her friend Gayle King and others entry to the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore store when they arrived 15 minutes after its regular closing time at 6:30 p.m.
'I was there, I saw it,' Gayle says. 'It was really, really bad. People were in the store and they were shopping. Oprah was at the door and she was not allowed into the store. Oprah describes it herself as one of the most humiliating moments of her life.'
Tom Cruise told Pat OâBrien Thursday night that he was 'just shocked' by the incident.
'I know that those kinds of people are not the majority,' he said. 'For that happen to Oprah, we all love Oprah. Oprah is such a great woman. I'm sorry that happened. I'll call her tomorrow.'" âfrom Yahoo Entertainment News June 24, 2005
Wow!
Tom Cruise called me this morning too!
He heard that they wouldnât let me into the CVS Drug Store twenty minutes after they closed.
As I explained it to Tom, I was just trying to spend some âMe Timeâ picking up a bottle of Listerine and a cream for that rash on my leg, but CVS wouldnât open the doors. There were still people in there and everything! They said their regular closing time was 8:00 pm. and it was 8:20 p.m when I got there, but come on. I had meant to be there earlier but I got all caught up worrying about Oprah.
Is she okay?
I totally hear Gayle, but - honestly - the word âhumiliationâ does not begin to describe what it feels like to be locked out of Hermes like that.
Humiliating is when youâre Islamic and youâre being held in prison, perhaps without much cause, and the guard urinates on your copy of The Koran.
Or when born again politicians wonât let your comatose wife die with dignity, turning your personal tragedy into an international media farce.
Or you look like a stoner-dork-loser-idiot on the front page of the New York Times after you're caught money laundering for a "gimme-five"'n right-wing lobbyist. Now thatâs humiliating.
Being refused admittance to a Hermes store after they have closed for the day is something much, much worse.
Honestly, I don't even know if there's a word for it.
I told Cruise this, and I'll say it again in case anyone reading this knows Oprah personally. I don't know what it's like to be who she is, a multi-millionaire denied access to luxury shopping in Paris. But from my limited experience locked out of CVS, I've had a glimpse of what it must have been like. I feel her pain. And also tell her, hey, I just want to know, what can we do to make this right?