Strip away the fabulous exterior, and the lives of even the most powerful fashion stars are often far more fragile than they appear. Take John Demsey, former executive group president of The Estée Lauder Companies. A staunch supporter of Lauder, Demsey led the company’s growth from a mid-sized privately held family business to a publicly traded cosmetics powerhouse with a market capitalization of more than $100 billion at its peak.
Dempsey’s world unexpectedly came crashing down last winter when his father became seriously ill and his mother began battling cancer. In early March 2022, Demsey was forced to retire from Lauder after retweeting an Instagram meme containing the N-word. Dempsey insists he misunderstood the meme, which was originally shared by rapper Chingy.
Demsey’s 31-year career at Lauder ended in less than a week despite the post being deleted within hours and pressure from Lauder employees and “callout” accounts such as Estee Laundry. Dempsey, who was branded a racist and silenced as part of a legal agreement with his former employer, has been removed.
“It felt like a victim of identity theft,” Dempsey, 67, told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview, his first since the Instagram fiasco 18 months ago. “I made a mistake and I corrected it. But my life was gone before this happened.”
Mementos of this life cover nearly every surface of the six-story East End townhouse. Dempsey, who is divorced, bought the townhouse in 2018 and shares it with his 14-year-old daughter, Marie-Hélène, eight dogs and a pair of cats.
Dempsey has spent most of his time here since he left Lauder—angry, frustrated, exercising a lot (he lost 35 pounds), but mostly cooped up at home, apparently very regret.
“I almost feel like I’m under house arrest,” he said deadpan. “When I go out, people act like they’ve sat Shiva for me.”
In the billion-dollar world of luxury and beauty, few stars shine brighter than Dempsey. Tall and imposing, the Stanford-educated executive was equally adept at creating buzz and making money.
“Demsey has always had a deep understanding of what consumers want before they want it,” says Thomai Serdari, director of the Fashion and Luxury MBA program at NYU and a professor at Demsey during Lauder’s tenure. “He’s very good at commercializing brands…while providing the glue that makes businesses work.”
Dempsey’s influence at Lauder was manifested in two ways: visionary ad campaigns and his role as chairman of the MAC AIDS Fund, which has raised $500 million for HIV research over the past 25 years.
In the advertising world, Demsey is best known for the VivaGlam campaign he oversaw for MAC. Many of their stars are black — RuPaul, Rihanna, Diana Ross, Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj. Dempsey’s intimacy with African-American art provided him with a racial operability that white executives rarely had.
“John was one of the most culturally adaptable people in terms of inclusivity long before the George Floyd era,” longtime Wall Street Journal fashion reporter Teri Agins told Washington post”. “John was accepted by black people because he always felt like he fit into the culture.”
Wearing a tan suit and Zegna sneakers, Dempsey was disbelieving and humble as he recounted the events of the past year. He candidly described his behavior on social media as “stupid and impulsive” — a casualty of the near-frenzied Instagram spread during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I post about 20 or 30 times a day,” he said. “People did react to that, and that’s how it went.”
Dempsey explained that the Chingy meme popped up randomly in his feed — a big Covid-era bird caring for a bedridden Snuffleupagus, along with “my n***a Snuffy finished at Chingy got the Rhona” stage at the concert.
Dempsey insists he pronounces n***a as “grandmother” — A nod to Snuffleupagus’ grandmotherly outfit.
“I’ve never used that word in my life,” Dempsey said of the racial slur he’s accused of promoting.
Although Chingy himself defended him on Instagram, no one really knows what Demsey was thinking when he hit the share button.
Dempsey’s death has been labeled as Lauder’s responsibility — and the poster child for “white privilege” — reflecting both the punitive nature of the current cultural climate and a false belief in one’s own indispensability.
“I’m kind of a manager,” he said. “The businesses and people I support are very successful because that’s who I am.”
In fact, longtime admirers of Dempsey say it’s his record of hiring African-Americans that really matters.
Take Sean “Puffy” Combs, whom Demsey brought to Estée Lauder in 2004 when other beauty groups were reluctant to sign a fragrance deal with the rapper.Just a year later, Combs’ fragrance, Unforgivable, was doing $1.5 million in weekly sales, according to The New York Times..
“John was one of the good guys,” said Richard Parsons, the former Time Warner and Citigroup CEO and chairman of the Apollo Theater Foundation, on which Dempsey served on the board for a decade. “Back in the ’90s, he was a leader in getting people of color represented in magazines and photo shoots — he made a difference.”
Demsey provided exposure and paychecks to many African-American singers, stylists and makeup artists years before DEI regulations became the norm.
“For someone who has contributed so much to black culture, to hip-hop culture, his career has been frustrating in every way,” says stylist June Ambrose, whose clients include MAC campaign stars like Missy Elliott and Mary J. Blige.
As a white man, with earnings close to $10 million in 2021, Dempsey is undoubtedly privileged. “But just because you’re privileged,” Ambrose continued, “doesn’t mean you’re racist.”
Dempsey admitted he was disappointed that he hadn’t been able to publicly support his friend since leaving Lauder. Worse still was the loss of the Lauders themselves, whom he considered one extended family.
“I love this family, especially [chairman emeritus] Leonard Lauder, because I feel like their values are the complete opposite of what other companies have,” Dempsey said.
Akins was one of them, and it never occurred to him that the company would actually fire Dempsey. “Of course, John’s behavior was sloppy, but I think he’s going to be suspended and then Rand will pass,” she told The Washington Post.
However, as the public face of a public company, Dempsey has little chance of surviving the scandal.
“You can’t get enough credit for getting rid of racial sensitivities,” said Earnest Owens, author of “The Case for Cancel Culture.” “It’s about impact, not intent.”
Still, Owens acknowledged that Dempsey was affected by the corporate cleanup following the murder of George Floyd. “If this happened before the summer of 2020, [Demsey] could have had very different results,” he said.
However, while Demsey is not the only fashion leader accused of being racially insensitive — Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, for example, has been accused of “posting hurtful or intolerant images or stories throughout her career. ’ and apologized — but he’s one of the few who will actually lose their job.
But with Estée Lauder’s stock down nearly 50% since Dempsey left, he may actually be more indispensable than the Rands realize.
In fact, two years after bringing Sean Combs to Lauder, Demsey convinced the company to launch a fragrance and beauty line for Tom Ford. In November, Lauder bought Ford’s fashion brand for $2.8 billion, the company’s first foray into apparel in its nearly 75-year history.
Dempsey’s home is filled with a dizzying array of artwork, furniture and, above all, photography. In all, there are nearly 600 photos – from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s historical photos to clips from Demsey’s many MAC ad campaigns.
It is from here that Dempsey is preparing his next move. He said he had no choice.
“I don’t want to be called a ‘cancelled man’ on social media – because my legacy is defined in just three hours”.
Dempsey, who remains bound by the reported Lauder non-compete agreement, is a senior adviser at L Catterton, a private equity group linked to LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault , where he will help identify and grow news business opportunities. While the headlines of Dempsey’s appointment referred to the Lauder saga, NYU’s Sedari believes the business world has moved beyond it.
“People make mistakes,” she said, “but that shouldn’t affect his expertise and intelligence.”
There’s also a thick coffee table book, “Behind the Blue Door,” detailing his home’s museum-like treasures, which he co-authored with “CBS Sunday Morning” contributor Alina Jo. Cho), inspired by the vintage blue door in front of his townhouse. The book will be released on October 17.
Dempsey also returned to the social maelstrom he once ruled. He threw a birthday party for stylist Ambrose at his home in June, and the likes of actor Zachary Quinto and Bergdorf Goodman executive Linda Fargo seem to have shed the meme.
The same goes for Demsey, whose father eventually died in June 2022 and who moved his mother from Ohio to New York to care for her. “I’m not done — not at all,” he said. “I still have a lot to say, a lot to say. The world is still a very exciting place.”
dkaufman@nypost.com
