Did Bergdorf Goodman racially profile Wendy Williams and NeNe Leakes?
The award-winning talk show host talks about being followed around in the high-brow luxury department store
Wendy Williams believes she and good friends, Nene Leakes and Marlo Hampton, were racially profiled on Monday during a shopping trip at Bergdorf Goodman.
Wendy Williams believes she and good friends, Nene Leakes and Marlo Hampton, were racially profiled during a shopping trip at Bergdorf Goodman.
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During the “Hot Topics” segment of her show on Monday, a visibly upset Williams told her audience about the incident that reportedly happened at the upscale retail store in Manhattan.
The talk show host told viewers that she, Leakes, of the Real Housewives of Atlanta fame, and Hampton, also with RHOA, were spending money on negligees, gowns, and shoes, and had even stopped upstairs for lunch.
But security, she said, followed them throughout the luxury department store.
“Can I tell you about the security? They treated us like the hood,” Williams said, emphasizing her skin color when she said the word “us.”
Williams, 55, implied that it didn’t matter that she and her friends are millionaires and widely known. She said they were still racially profiled.
“You can earn what you want, you can do what you want but when you are what you are, you better not be surprised at how people treat you,” Williams said. “We were followed … like (the security) might have to do something.”
Williams said “this place,” told her she couldn’t post the picture of her in the store, but she did anyway.
“So when this place tells me I can’t post this picture, I’m like ‘You know what, I’m posting on hot topics then and I’m going to tell you exactly what it is,’” Williams added.
Bergdorf Goodman did not respond to a request for comment, Dailymail.com reported. Representatives for Leakes and Hampton also didn’t reply to the newspaper’s request for comment.
It isn’t the first time Bergdorf Goodman has been accused publicly of racial profiling. There was an incident in 2013 when the store lost a Black customer who said he went to buy shirts at the store but decided to leave when the sales staff just stared at him and wouldn’t help.
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Bergdorf Goodman does prohibit profiling in its “Customers’ Bill of Rights’ which says “profiling is an unacceptable practice and will not be tolerated.”
“Bergdorf Goodman strictly prohibits … the profiling of customers by an employee. The participation by employees in such activities or the failure to report such instances of which they have knowledge is a violation of company policy,” the Bill of Rights adds.
