Is a very late apology better than none at all? That appears to be the question when it comes to how the LGBT community will respond to the latest from Italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have taken advantage of an interview with Voguemagazine to apologize for controversial comments the pair made in an interview with Italian magazine Panorama in March about their opposition to gay adoptions and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Dolce had previously referred to children born via IVF as “synthetic children,” sparking outrage from a number of celebrities, including singer Elton John, who had two children born via IVF with his husband, David Furnish. Dolce & Gabbana’s comments John to call for a boycott of the fashion line, and other activists to hold demonstrations outside their stores.
In the Vogue interview, Dolce adopts a somewhat conciliatory tone, telling writer Sarah Mower he understands how much his comments hurt people.
“I’ve done some soul-searching,” he says. “I’ve talked to Stefano a lot about this. I’ve realized that my words were inappropriate, and I apologize. They are just kids.”
Dolce also says he doesn’t know everything about IVF, but acknowledges that people should choose for themselves how to shape their families, saying “I love it when people are happy.”
But Dolce also says that choices available to other gay men and women are not an option for him personally, citing his devout Catholicism.
In that same interview, Gabbana also shares that he previously considered becoming a father, but was stymied because of Italy’s prohibition on both same-sex marriage and single-parent adoption, as well as Italy’s cumbersome rules governing adoption from other countries.
“I had thought of going to California and having a baby, but I couldn’t bring the baby back to Italy, because you need the mother’s passport,” Gabbana says. “I asked about adoption in Italy. It’s very hard for a straight couple here — imagine if you are gay!”
New York City gay real estate developer Ian Reisner has signed a lease to take over the former Playboy Club space and the adjacent Cachet Boutique Hotel NYC with the intent of transforming it into a gay-friendly hotel, restaurant, and nightclub.
Reisner told The New York Post that he is in talks with a European boutique hotel operator to open the space in September.
Until then, the yet-to-be-named hotel will operate as an Airbnb, with rentals potentially starting as soon as this month.
Located at 510 W. 42nd Street, the renovated Cachet Boutique Hotel space, which shuttered last October, will feature a 103-room hotel and a 7,500-square-foot restaurant and common area that will be open for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night dining.
The parent company of Bud Light may have lost as much as $1.4 billion in sales due to a boycott against the once-popular beer brand.
The boycott was mounted after the company partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney for an online promotion last year.
Mulvaney appeared in a TikTok video highlighting Bud Light's "March Madness" promotion during the annual NCAA Division I men's and women’s basketball tournament.
She also appeared in an online ad where she sat in a bubble bath, clad in a bathing suit, sipping Bud Light.
As part of that promotion, the company also sent Mulvaney a commemorative can with a picture of her face on the exterior, celebrating the first anniversary of her “Days of Girlhood” video series documenting her gender transition.
The company that makes Doritos is facing calls for a boycott after the brand aligned with a transgender influencer with a history of problematic social media posts.
Doritos partnered with Samantha Hudson, a transgender singer, actor, and political activist from Spain with 370,000 Instagram followers, for a social media campaign promoting the brand, releasing an Instagram video on Sunday.
But the campaign was soon interrupted after conservative and anti-LGBTQ online activists unearthed social media posts that the now-24-year-old Hudson had written as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old back in 2015.
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Is a very late apology better than none at all? That appears to be the question when it comes to how the LGBT community will respond to the latest from Italian fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana.
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have taken advantage of an interview with Vogue magazine to apologize for controversial comments the pair made in an interview with Italian magazine Panorama in March about their opposition to gay adoptions and in-vitro fertilization (IVF). Dolce had previously referred to children born via IVF as “synthetic children,” sparking outrage from a number of celebrities, including singer Elton John, who had two children born via IVF with his husband, David Furnish. Dolce & Gabbana’s comments John to call for a boycott of the fashion line, and other activists to hold demonstrations outside their stores.
In the Vogue interview, Dolce adopts a somewhat conciliatory tone, telling writer Sarah Mower he understands how much his comments hurt people.
“I’ve done some soul-searching,” he says. “I’ve talked to Stefano a lot about this. I’ve realized that my words were inappropriate, and I apologize. They are just kids.”
Dolce also says he doesn’t know everything about IVF, but acknowledges that people should choose for themselves how to shape their families, saying “I love it when people are happy.”
But Dolce also says that choices available to other gay men and women are not an option for him personally, citing his devout Catholicism.
In that same interview, Gabbana also shares that he previously considered becoming a father, but was stymied because of Italy’s prohibition on both same-sex marriage and single-parent adoption, as well as Italy’s cumbersome rules governing adoption from other countries.
“I had thought of going to California and having a baby, but I couldn’t bring the baby back to Italy, because you need the mother’s passport,” Gabbana says. “I asked about adoption in Italy. It’s very hard for a straight couple here — imagine if you are gay!”