Popular retail giant Old Navy is under fire this week after multiple Philadelphia store employees came forward to accuse the company of “whitewashing” its staff ahead of filming for a Queer Eye episode.
And now, as the clothing store officially responds to the allegations, the stars of the hit Netflix show are also coming forward to strongly deny any involvement in what’s being accused.
Lots of controversy to catch up on here…
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The whole thing started about a week ago, on August 21, when a store employee named Monae Alvarado posted an accusation on her Facebook page alleging the Philadelphia store asked her and the rest of the employees to work overnight setting up for a Queer Eye episode — only to bring in “all white” employees when it came time to actually film.
Alvarado’s post read:
“My job is nothing but people of color. Most of us did an overnight to help make the store look beautiful. Today they brought all these workers from other store [sic] around the region (West Chester, Mount Pocono, and Deptford NJ) and they were all white. They had us standing in the back not to be seen while the other workers from another store get to work on our floor like it’s their store. The shade I tell you.”
Whoa!
That’s a serious allegation directed at Old Navy and the culture among its management; after all, multiple people would have had to sign off on this! (BTW, after Alvarado’s allegation went viral, two other employees corroborated her story in separate interviews.)
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Old Navy was the first to push back against the accusation, releasing an official statement earlier this week (below):
“At Old Navy, we celebrate the diversity of our teams and our customers and foster an environment of inclusion and belonging. We were proud to work with The Queer Eye show to film at our store in Philadelphia and to feature our local store manager on camera. We also worked with additional employees in the area to help ensure the store ran seamlessly for customers, as the location was open for business during filming, and we expect they may appear in background shots. These individuals are reflective of our diverse employee population. We would never select employees to participate — or not — based on race. That is completely inaccurate and against the values we stand for as a company.”
Hmmm… can we trust what Old Navy says??
For what it’s worth, the alleged “whitewashing” for the cameras appears to have happened outside the knowledge of the Queer Eye stars and the Netflix-affiliated production team.
For one, show style expert Tan France indicated as much in response to Alvarado, writing a comment directly on her original Facebook post (below):
“I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, or overnight. but what I can tell you is that there [is] no way I would ever have allowed production to move POC [people of color] to the back.”
Amen, Tan!
And on Wednesday, after days of the controversy brewing on social media, Netflix finally released an official statement denying they or any of the Fab Five had knowledge of anything untoward taking place prior to filming. The statement reads (below):
“Queer Eye’s hosts, producers and crew had no knowledge or influence on Old Navy staffing choices while filming in a Philadelphia-based store this past week. While filming, production featured one female employee, an African American manager, who completed an on-camera styling consultation and also served as a point of contact for our crew.”
So there you have it!
We’ll keep you updated if anything more comes from this controversy.
As you might have surmised from the whole ordeal, Queer Eye is currently shooting its fifth season in Philadelphia. No doubt we’ll see it pop up on Netflix soon enough!
Reactions here, Perezcious readers?!
[Image via WENN/Old Navy]
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