Guess boss Paul Marciano resigns over alleged sexual abuse
June 13, 2018
The global fashion brand announced that its co-founder is stepping down following its own investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and assault made by model Kate Upton and others.
Image: Getty Images/GUESS/A. Perilstein
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Paul Marciano is resigning immediately as executive chairman of the Guess board due to claims of sexual misconduct. He will be replaced by his brother Maurice Marciano, another company co-founder, according to a filing by Guess with the Securities and Exchange Commission released on Tuesday.
"The investigation found that on certain occasions Marciano exercised poor judgment in his communications with models and photographers and in placing himself in situations in which plausible allegations of improper conduct could, and did, arise," the filing said.
Having denied the allegations, 66-year-old Marciano, who owns a 17 percent stake in Guess Inc., will remain a board member and chief creative officer until his contract expires at the end of January 2019.
The company, whose designer female clothing line reached peak popularity in the 1980s and 90s, said it has settled lawsuits with five of Paul Marciano's accusers totaling $500,000 (over €425,000).
The allegations first surfaced when model Kate Upton said in a Time magazine interview that Marciano grabbed her breasts during a Guess photo shoot in 2010.
A month later, he repeatedly asked to come to her hotel room but she declined and then turned off her phone and locked the door. The next morning she had been fired on the grounds that she had "gotten fat."
Kate Upton alleges the Guess boss groped her in 2010 Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/E. Agostini
"It's disappointing that such an iconic women's brand @GUESS is still empowering Paul Marciano as their creative director #MeToo," Upton tweeted in January.
"Paul used his power to make me feel insecure and powerless, but I'm not going to let him intimidate me anymore. These men think they are untouchable, but times are changing," Upton added in the Time interview.
#MeToo fights back
It was a nod to the #MeToo movement that had become empowered after scores of women alleged decades of sexual harassment and abuse suffered at the hands of entertainment industry figureheads such as film producer Harvey Weinstein.
In the wake of Upton's accusations, a special committee of the Guess board hired an outside law firm to investigate several reports of inappropriate comments and texts along with unwanted kissing and groping.
While the firm failed to corroborate some allegations, the filing noted that in other cases "the investigation found that credible accounts were given by both sides."
Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents four of the five women accusers who settled with Guess, said in a statement that they are pleased Marciano is stepping down as board chair but disappointed he'll stay on in other capacities.
"We do not believe a man with so many credible accusations of sexual assault is fit to lead any company," Bloom said, "much less one that sells primarily to women."
Time's 2017 Person of the Year: The Silence Breakers
Giving power to the #MeToo movement, the people who came forward with their stories of sexual harassment have been named Time's 2017 Person of the Year. Here are some of the most high-profile "Silence Breakers."
Image: getty images / picture-alliance
Ashley Judd
In 1997, upcomer Ashley Judd was invited to meet star-maker Harvey Weinstein at an LA hotel, whereupon he tried to coerce her into bed. Judd escaped but refused to be silenced. Many in Hollywood then said the producer's sexual misconduct was an "open secret." "There wasn't a place for us to report these experiences," said Judd, the first to call out Weinstein in the New York Times in October.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/J. Samad
Rose McGowan
When actor Rose McGowan first told people that Harvey Weinstein had raped her, she says some in Hollywood threatened to end her career. "They threatened [me] with being blacklisted. I was blacklisted after I was raped, because I got raped, because I said something," she said in a January interview first published in the Observer. But that didn't stop her from later speaking out.
Image: picture-alliance/empics/The Canadian Press/AP/Invision/R. Shotwell
Taylor Swift
When Taylor Swift alleged that Denver radio DJ David Mueller reached under her skirt and groped her, he took her to court after it lead to his firing. "I'm not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault," she told his lawyer. Swift also told Time magazine that if Mueller was "brazen enough to assault me... imagine what he might do to a vulnerable, young artist."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Szenes
Selma Blair
Blair claims that writer/director James Toback invited her to his room and asked her to remove her clothing while she read a script before asking her for sex. When she refused, he blocked her way and masturbated against her leg. He then threatened to kill her if she dared to talk. "I didn't want to speak up because, it sounds crazy but, even until now, I have been scared for my life," said Blair.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Images/J. Strauss
Alyssa Milano
"Me Too" was first used in 2006 by gender equality activist Tarana Burke as a rallying cry for young sexual harassment and assault survivors. Actor Alyssa Milano was sent a screenshot of the phrase in October and later tweeted: "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet." She woke to find that over 30,000 people had used #MeToo and burst into tears.
Image: Getty Images/D. Kambouris
Wendy Walsh
After Bill O'Reilly and Fox News spent millions on lawyers to settle, and silence, sexual harassment claims, Wendy Walsh, a psychologist and Fox contributor spoke out about O'Reilly after initial reluctance for fear of retaliation. "I felt it was my duty," Walsh told Time, "as a mother of daughters, as an act of love for women everywhere and the women who are silenced, to be brave."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. McCartney
Megyn Kelly
TV news anchor Megyn Kelly has accused Fox host Bill O'Reilly of sexual harassment. "What if we did complain?" she said to Time, "if we spoke our truth in our strongest voices? What if that worked to change reality right now?" Perhaps that change has already started to come. "I always thought maybe things could change for my daughter," said Kelly. "I never thought things could change for me."
Image: Getty Images/K. Winter
Susan Fowler
An Uber engineer, Fowler felt powerless with "a harasser in the White House" and decided to out sexual harassers at Uber in a blog post. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was subsequently forced to resign and 20-odd employees were fired. "There's something really empowering about standing up for what's right," said Fowler, who has been described as a whistle-blower — which she calls "a badge of honor."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/S. Van Tine
Terry Crews
The actor and former American football star is one of a number of men who have said "me too." Crews has taken out a sexual assault lawsuit against talent agent Adam Venit, who he accuses of groping him at a party in Hollywood in February 2016. Also among Time's Silence Breakers is actor Blaise Godbe Lipman, who's accused talent agent Tyler Grasham of sexually assaulting him when he was a teenager.
