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Peel away the facade of fabulousness and the life of even the most powerful style star is often far more fragile than it seems.

Take John Demsey, the former Executive Group President at the Este Lauder Companies. A three-decade Lauder stalwart, Demsey helped steer the company from a mid-sized privately-run family concern to a publicly-traded cosmetics giant worth, at its peak, over $100 billion.

Last winter, as his father lay gravely ill and his mother began battling cancer, the rest of Demsey’s world unexpectedly imploded. In early March 2022, Demsey was forced to retire from Lauder after he reposted an Instagram meme that contained the N-word.

Demsey insisted hed misinterpreted the meme, which was initially shared by the rapper Chingy.

Despite removing the post within hours, pressure from both Lauder employees and call-out accounts like Estee Laundry saw Demseys 31-year career at Lauder end in barely a week. Branded a racist and quieted as part of a legal agreement with his former employer Demsey had been canceled.  

It felt like Id been the victim of an identity theft, Demsey, 67, told The Post in an exclusive interview, his first since the Instagram fiasco 18 months earlier. I made a mistake and I corrected it. But the life I had before this happened simply does not exist anymore.

The mementos of that life cover nearly every surface of the six-story East Side townhouse, which Demsey, who’s divorced, bought in 2018 and shares with his 14-year-old daughter, Marie-Hlne, eight dogs, and a pair of cats.

Demsey has spent the majority of his post-Lauder existence here sometimes angry, sometimes depressed, often exercising (hes dropped 35 pounds), but mostly cooped-up and clearly contrite.

I almost feel like Ive been under house arrest, he deadpanned. And when I do go out, people act as if theyve sat shiva for me. 

In the multi-billion dollar world of luxury and beauty, few stars cast a wider shine than Demsey. Tall and imposing, the Stanford-educated exec was equally adept at creating buzz and making money.  

Demsey has always had a deep sense of what consumers want before they want it, said Professor Thomai Serdari, Director of the Fashion and Luxury MBA Program at New York University, of Demseys tenure at Lauder. He is very good at commercializing brands … while providing the glue that makes ventures work.

Demseys presence at Lauder was particularly potent in two areas: far-sighted advertising campaigns and his chairmanship of the MAC AIDS fund, which has raised $500 million for HIV research over the past 25 years. 

In the ad world, Demsey is best known for the decades of VivaGlam and Beauty Icon promotions he oversaw for MAC. Many of their stars were black RuPaul, Rihanna, Diana Ross, Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj. And Demseys intimacy with African-American artistry provided him with a level of racial maneuverability rarely afforded to white execs.

Long before the era of George Floyd, John was one of the most culturally attuned people when it came to inclusivity, longtime former Wall Street Journal fashion reporter Teri Agins told The Post. John was accepted by black people because it always felt like he was in the culture. 

Dressed in a tan suit and Zegna sneakers, Demsey displayed both incredulousness and humility as he recounted the events of the past year. He freely described his actions on social media as stupid and impulsive a casualty of the near-manic Instagramming which overtook him during Covid.

I was posting like 20 or 30 times a day, he said. People really responded to it and it just became this sort of a thing. 

The Chingy meme, Demsey explained, appeared randomly in his feed a Covid-era Big Bird tending to a bed-ridden Snuffleupagus accompanied by the phrase My n***a Snuffy done got the rona at a Chingy concert.

Demsey insists he read n***a as nanna a nod to Snuffleupagus grandmotherly get-up.

Ive never used that word in my life, Demsey said of the racial slur hes accused of promoting.

Even though Chingy himself went on Instagram to defend him, no one else will ever really know what Demsey was thinking when he pushed that share button. 

Branded a Lauder liability and a poster boy for white privilege Demseys demise reflects both the punitiveness of this current cultural climate along with a misguided belief in his own indispensability. 

I was a bit of an impresario, he said. And those businesses and people that I supported were very successful because that’s the way I was.

Indeed, what does matter, say longtime Demsey admirers, is his track record of hiring African Americans.

Take Sean “Puffy” Combs, who Demsey brought to Este Lauder in 2004 back when other beauty groups were reluctant to sign the rapper for a fragrance deal. Barely a year later, Combs’ scent Unforgivable had achieved $1.5 million in sales per week, according to The New York Times. 

John is one of the good guys, said Richard Parsons, the former Time Warner and Citigroup CEO and Chair of the Apollo Theater Foundation on whose board Demsey served for a decade. As far back as the 90s he was a leader in putting people of color in magazines and photo shoots he made a difference. 

Years before DEI mandates became standard, Demsey was providing exposure and paychecks to many African-American singers, stylists, and makeup artists.

For someone whos contributed so much to black culture, to hip-hop culture to have his career end like this is disheartening in every way, said creative director June Ambrose, whose clients have included MAC campaign stars such as Missy Elliott and Mary J. Blige.

A white man who earned nearly $10 million in 2021, Demsey is certainly privileged. But just because youre privileged, Ambrose continued, doesnt mean youre racist.

Demsey concedes hes disappointed by the friends who failed to publicly support him after he left Lauder. Harder still was the loss of the Lauders themselves, whom he had considered an extended family.

“I loved the family, particularly [chairman emeritus] Leonard Lauder because I felt that their values were so contrary to what other companies were about,” Demsey said.

Agins, for one, never imagined the company would actually let Demsey go. Sure, John’s actions were sloppy, but I figured he would be suspended and then Lauder would move past it, she told The Post.  

Yet as the very public face of a very public company, Demsey stood little chance of surviving the scandal.

You cannot earn enough accolades to divorce yourself from racial sensitivity, says Ernest Owens, author of the book “The Case for Cancel Culture.” This is about impact not intent.

Still, Owens concedes that Demsey was impacted by the corporate house cleaning that followed the murder of George Floyd. Had this happened before summer 2020, [Demsey] might have had a very different outcome, he said.

Yet while Demsey was hardly the only style leader charged with racial insensitivity Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, for instance, issued a mea culpa for “publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant” during her career   he was one of the few to actually wind up unemployed. 

But with Este Lauder stock down nearly 50% since his departure, Demsey may have actually been more indispensable than the Lauders realized.

Indeed, two years after he brought Sean Combs to Lauder, Demsey also convinced the company to launch fragrance and beauty lines for Tom Ford. Last November, Lauder snapped up Ford’s fashion label for a cool $2.8 billion the company’s first foray into the apparel arena since it was established nearly 75 years ago. 

Demseys home is a dizzying assemblage of art, furniture, an especially photography. There are nearly 600 photos in total from historic prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson to outtakes from Demsey’s many MAC campaigns. 

Its from here that Demsey is readying his next acts. He has no other choice, he said.

I dont want to be known as the canceled guy  for my legacy to be defined by just three hours on social media. 

Still bound by his reported Lauder non-compete, Demsey has taken on a senior advisory role with L Catterton, the private equity group tied to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, where he’ll help identify and grow new business opportunities. Although the headlines accompanying Demsey’s appointment made note of the Lauder saga, NYU’s Serdari believes the business world has moved past it.

“People make mistakes,” she said, “but that shouldn’t take away from his expertise and intellectual ability.”

There’s also “Behind the Blue Door,” a hefty coffee-table book detailing the museum-like treasures throughout his home, which he co-authored with “CBS Sunday Morning” contributor Alina Cho and is inspired by the vintage blue door fronting his townhouse. The book will be released on October 17th.

Demsey is also returning to the social swirl he once dominated. In June he hosted a birthday party for stylist and costume designer Ambrose at his home where folks like actor Zachary Quinto and Bergdorf Goodman exec Linda Fargo appeared to have moved on from the meme.

And, so has Demsey whose father ultimately passed away in June 2022, while he moved his mother from Ohio to New York in order to look after her. Im not done not at all, he said. Ive got a lot more in me, a lot more to say. The world is still a very exciting place. 

dkaufman@nypost.com

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Emilia Perez was a BAFTAs and Oscars frontrunner – where did it all go wrong?

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Emilia Perez was a BAFTAs and Oscars frontrunner - where did it all go wrong?

At the start of awards season, Emilia Perez looked like it could come away as one of this year’s big success stories.

First there was a slew of gongs at the Golden Globes, including best comedy or musical film, and then came the Oscar nominations – it leads the race with 13 nods, and broke the record to become the most nominated non-English language film in the history of the awards.

At the BAFTAs this weekend, it is shortlisted for 11 prizes; just pipped by papal thriller Conclave, which has 12. And star Karla Sofia Gascon has made history as a trans woman nominated for best actress at both ceremonies.

Set in Mexico but mostly filmed in France, Emilia Perez is an operatic Spanish-language musical which tells the story of a Mexican drug lord who undergoes gender affirmation surgery. In May last year, it won the Cannes Film Festival jury prize, setting it on its trajectory to 2025 awards season success.

Emilia P..rez. (L-R) Selena Gomez as Jessi and Karla Sof..a Gasc..n as Emilia P..rez in Emilia P..rez. Cr. PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATH.. FILMS - FRANCE 2 CIN..MA.
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Selena Gomez (pictured with Gascon) also stars in in the film. Pic: Page 114/ Why Not Productins/ Pathe/ France 2 Cinema/ Netflix

The film’s acknowledgement seemingly reflected the more progressive attitudes of voters in recent years – but as its profile rose, so did the scrutiny.

US LGBTQ+ advocacy and cultural change group GLAAD has described Emilia Perez as a “step backward for trans representation”, and highlighted reviews by transgender critics who “understand how inauthentic portrayals of trans people are offensive and even dangerous”.

The film has also come under fire for stereotypical depictions of Mexico and an apparent minimal inclusion of Mexican people among the main cast and crew. Of its main stars, Gascon is Spanish, US actress Zoe Saldana is of Dominican Republic and Puerto Rican descent, and Selena Gomez is American, though her father was of Mexican descent. Adriana Paz is Mexican.

In a post on X in January viewed more than 2.7m times, Mexican screenwriter Héctor Guillén shared a mock-up poster saying: “Mexico hates Emilia Pérez/ Racist Euro Centrist Mockery/ Almost 500K dead and France decides to do a musical/ No Mexicans in their cast or crew.”

While stories about “narco” crime in Latin America have long been depicted on screen, Emilia Perez has been particularly criticised for its handling of the subject. Since 2006, a bloody war between Mexican authorities and the drug cartels has raged, claiming the lives of more than 400,000 people, according to government data. More than 100,000 have gone missing.

Read more:
Mexico: Women at war
The city ravaged by a brutal and deadly drugs gang war

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Inside Mexico’s gang war

Offensive? Or a ‘crazy marvel’?

General audiences appear to have made their thoughts clear. On film database site IMDB, Emilia Perez gets 5.5 out of 10, while its nine competitors in the running for best picture at the Oscars rate between 7.3, for The Substance, and 8.8 for I’m Still Here.

On review site Rotten Tomatoes, Emilia Perez gets a 72% from critics, but just 17% from audiences; again, the rest of its Oscars competitors range from Wicked’s 88% critics’ score to I’m Still Here’s 96%, or Nickel Boy’s 65% audience score to I’m Still Here’s 99%. The two takeways? The gap is clear whichever way you look at it; watch I’m Still Here.

That’s not to say Emilia Perez does not have its supporters. Speaking after a screening in October, Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro said it was “so beautiful to see a movie that is cinema“, and hailed director Jacques Audiard as “one of the most amazing filmmakers alive”.

A review in US entertainment outlet Deadline in May during Cannes last year was headlined, “Jacques Audiard’s musical is crazy, but also a marvel”, with the writer saying the “sparkle never outshines the essential seriousness of the subject”. In Variety, another US entertainment publication, the headline praised Gascon’s electrifying performance.

Adriana Paz, from left, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana, winner of the award for best performance by a female actor in a supporting role in any motion picture for "Emilia Perez," and Karla Sofia Gascon pose in the press room during the 82nd Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
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L-R: Emilia Perez stars Adriana Paz, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascon at the Golden Globes. Pic: AP/ Chris Pizzello

Paz, who shared the Cannes best actress prize with her co-stars last year, has questioned the criticism about the film being “offensive” to Mexico, saying: “I really want to know why, because I didn’t feel that way.”

Carlos Aguilar, a film critic originally from Mexico City who writes for the Roger Ebert film website, was generally positive in his review, giving the film three out of four stars.

However, he highlights that Emilia Perez is “not a Mexican film” and notes “Mexican audiences have grown accustomed to American perspectives exploiting narco-related afflictions for narratives unconcerned with addressing its root causes”.

Questioning intentions behind these productions is valid, he says, “but to decry Audiard for partaking in the common filmmaking practice of telling stories away from what’s immediately familiar to him would seem an overly simplistic assessment”.

Karla Sofia Gascon’s resurfaced tweets

Emilia Perez star Karla Sofia Gascon at the premiere in Mexico in January. Pic: Ismael Rosas/ EyePix/INSTARimages/ Cover Images via AP
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Gascon at the premiere in Mexico in January. Pic: Ismael Rosas/ EyePix/INSTARimages/ Cover Images via AP

But the criticism from some trans people and some Mexicans is not a good look for a supposedly progressive film about a trans woman in Mexico. All publicity is good publicity does not apply here.

A lot of this criticism, though, had been made before the Oscar and BAFTA nominations. Emilia Perez was still riding high at that point.

The nail in the coffin came after those nominations were announced, when offensive tweets posted by Gascon were unearthed. They were old, but not that old; the first dated back to 2016, but some were more recent.

In the since-deleted posts, Gascon took aim at Muslims’ dress, language and culture in her native Spain and suggested Islam should be banned.

And less than a month after the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020, which prompted a global reckoning about police brutality and racism, Gascon called Floyd a drug addict who “very few people ever cared” for.

Writer Sarah Hagi, who screenshotted the posts and shared them, wrote: “This is all from the star of a movie that is campaigning on its progressive values, you really gotta laugh.

Gascon, who was a regular in Mexican telenovelas before transitioning in 2018, issued an apology after the posts emerged, saying that “as someone in a marginalised community, I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain”.

She added: “All my life I have fought for a better world. I believe light will always triumph over darkness.”

‘This is an opera, not a criticism of Mexico’

Director Jacques Audiard on the set of Emilia Pérez. Pic: Shanna Besson/ Page 114/ Why Not Productions/ Pathe/ France 2 Cinema/ Netflix
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Director Jacques Audiard on set. Pic: Shanna Besson/ Page 114/ Why Not Productions/ Pathe/ France 2 Cinema/ Netflix

At the London Critics’ Circle Awards earlier this month, Gascon’s co-star Saldana called for people to be “abstract with your idea of redemption” and to keep “minds and your hearts open, always”.

But it looks like the damage has been done. While Saldana is still favourite to win best supporting actress at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars, and the film may win gongs for its music and maybe technical accolades, it seems the momentum for taking home any bigger prizes has gone.

As the backlash intensified, Audiard gave an interview to Deadline last week. He said he had not been in touch with Gascon and that he was “very sad” to see the issue “taking up all the space” around the film. What she said in her tweets was “inexcusable”, he added.

Read more:
Oscars 2025: The full list of nominees
BAFTAs 2025: The full list of nominees

The filmmaker also addressed criticism about representation of cartels and drug crime, saying: “Opera has psychological limitations. It seems I’m being attacked in the court of realism.”

Audiard said he never claimed to have made a “realistic” work or a documentary. “For example, I read a review where it said that night markets in Mexico City don’t have photocopiers. Well, in night markets in Mexico City, one also doesn’t sing and dance. You have to accept that is part of the magic here. This is an opera, not a criticism of anything about Mexico.”

Finally, asked if he had any regrets or if there was anything he would do differently, he said the one regret was that the film was not made in Mexico. “And the simple reason for that is that the film funding, the public funding for film in Mexico was not as good for us as what was available to us in France”.

Emilia Perez now heads to the BAFTAs and Oscars embroiled in controversy. But it is not the first. Remember British star Angela Riseborough’s nomination in 2023? Some, like Green Book in 2019, weathered it out to win. And Will Smith won his Oscar just moments after slapgate in 2022.

We’ll see at the BAFTAs on Sunday and at the Oscars next month, how forgiving voters will be about Emilia Perez.

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Sources: Bregman to Red Sox for 3 years, $120M

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Sources: Bregman to Red Sox for 3 years, 0M

Free agent Alex Bregman has a new home after agreeing to a three-year, $120 million deal with the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday night, sources told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers.

The $40 million annual salary is $10 million-plus more per year than other teams were offering, sources said. The deal includes two opt-outs and deferred money.

Bregman, who was the biggest free agent remaining on the market, is expected to play second base for Boston, sources said, after primarily playing third for the Houston Astros since 2020. He gives the Red Sox another big bat to go with a retooled pitching staff after the team acquired Garrett Crochet via trade and signed Walker Buehler and Aroldis Chapman via free agency earlier this offseason.

Boston manager Alex Cora wanted Bregman badly, having previously coached him in Houston. And with the contract, the Red Sox made a big-money splash after guaranteeing only $52.3 million to free agents this winter, leading to significant frustration from a fan base of a team that hasn’t been to the postseason since 2021.

Bregman, who previously played all nine seasons with the Astros, had received interest from several teams, with the Detroit Tigers, Toronto Blue Jays and Chicago Cubs most heavily linked to him, along with Boston and Houston. The Tigers offered him a six-year, $171 million deal, and the Astros were around six years, $156 million, sources said.

Bregman’s right-handed bat has a track record of success at Fenway Park. In 21 career games there, he has a .375 batting average with seven home runs and 15 RBIs. His career 1.240 OPS at Fenway is the best in major league history among players with at least 90 plate appearances.

After slumping mightily at the start of the 2024 season, Bregman’s bat began to come around in June and the rest of the team followed, as the Astros ultimately jumped the Seattle Mariners to claim their seventh AL West title in eight years.

Bregman, who will turn 31 on March 30, finished the season with a .260 batting average, 26 home runs and 75 RBIs in 145 games. Houston lost back-to-back AL Wild Card Series games to the Tigers.

The two-time All-Star had surgery after the season to remove a bone chip from his right elbow, and agent Scott Boras said Bregman, who has exclusively played third base since 2020, was willing to move to second base if needed.

The Red Sox already have star Rafael Devers at third, so Bregman’s expected move to second would allow him to stay there. And while Bregman has logged only 32 innings at second in his major league career, Cora referred to him last month as someone he envisioned as “a Gold Glove second baseman” when the two were together in Houston.

Bregman, who is coming off a five-year, $100 million contract, slashed .275/.376/.488 with 157 home runs and 554 RBIs from 2017 to 2023, compiling 34.2 FanGraphs wins above replacement, eighth most among all position players. Overall, he has a .272 career batting average with 191 home runs and 663 RBIs.

He rejected a one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer by the Astros on Nov. 19, meaning Houston will receive a compensatory pick after the fourth round of this year’s MLB draft. Boston will lose its second-highest pick for signing him and will forfeit $500,000 of international signing bonus pool allocation.

Bregman’s ascension directly correlates with the Astros’ run of dominance, as his first full season came in 2017, when the franchise won its first championship — a title later tainted by the sign-stealing scandal that led to the firing of general manager Jeff Luhnow and field manager A.J. Hinch.

The Astros went on to make seven consecutive appearances in the AL Championship Series and won another World Series, during which Bregman established himself as one of the game’s best third basemen and became, along with Jose Altuve, one of the team’s core leaders.

Bregman was originally drafted by the Red Sox out of high school in 2012, but he opted to go to college at LSU. Houston then selected him second overall in the 2015 draft.

The Red Sox will hold their first full-squad workout Monday in Fort Myers, Florida. They host the Astros in the regular season Aug. 1-3, then visit Houston Aug. 11-13.

News of Bregman’s deal with Boston was first reported by The Athletic.

Information from ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Buster Olney and Alden Gonzalez was used in this report.

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Sources: Padres, quiet all winter, add RHP Pivetta

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Sources: Padres, quiet all winter, add RHP Pivetta

The San Diego Padres filled a clear need in their starting rotation Wednesday, agreeing to terms on a four-year, $55 million contract with veteran right-hander Nick Pivetta, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Pivetta’s deal, still pending the completion of a physical exam, includes opt-outs after the second and third seasons and is heavily backloaded. The contract will pay him a $3 million signing bonus and only a $1 million salary in 2025, then calls for salaries of $19 million, $14 million and $18 million from 2026 to 2028, sources told Passan.

The structure helps a Padres team that is trying to keep costs down for a second straight offseason and was already running a 2025 payroll of about $194 million, roughly a $30 million increase from where they were on Opening Day last year.

Pivetta, who will celebrate his 32nd birthday Friday, will likely slot in behind the Padres’ incumbent trio of Dylan Cease, Yu Darvish and Michael King, leaving Matt Waldron and Randy Vasquez, among others, to compete for the fifth spot.

One of few reliable starting pitchers remaining on the free agent market, Pivetta has been lauded for his durability, extension and propensity for missing bats.

With the Boston Red Sox over the past four seasons, he averaged 156 innings, posted a 4.33 ERA and struck out 26.9% of hitters. Last year, while posting a 4.14 ERA in 145⅔ innings, Pivetta finished with the lowest walk rate of his career at 6.1%.

Padres general manager A.J. Preller has navigated through a conservative, relatively quiet offseason since watching his team lose to the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series.

Preller didn’t make an addition to his major league roster until bringing back catcher Elias Diaz at the end of January. Days ago, the team agreed to $1 million deals with Connor Joe and Jason Heyward, who will make up a left-field platoon.

The Pivetta deal, occurring at the start of spring training, represents the first big move of the Padres’ offseason. Given the absence of front-line starter Joe Musgrove, who will spend the year recovering from Tommy John surgery, it’s an important one.

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