And other sobering (pun intended) excerpts from John Galliano‘s first interview since getting clean.
Oh, John Galliano. Parsons may have cancelled his class and Raf may be triumphing at Dior, but the designer‘s attempts to come in from the cold continue.
In an interview with Vanity Fair – his first since emerging from rehab – the designer talks candidly about the drink and drug problems that led to his anti-Semitic outburst and subsequent dismissal from Dior in 2011.
“I was going to end up in a mental asylum or six feet under,” Galliano says. “I was so fucking angry and so discontent with myself that I just said the most spiteful thing I could.”
Describing how he got trapped in a vicious cycle of alcohol and sleeping pills to cope with post-Fashion Week comedowns, he says: “Towards the end, it was whatever I could get my hands on… But I never for one second would admit I was an alcoholic. I thought I could control it.”
At the height of his alcoholism, the designer would get so black-out drunk that he’d lose entire days to drinking (“I’d be covered in sores and humiliated”) – and he still can’t remember the events of that night in 2011.
Galliano also recounts a particularly horrific incident where Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, told him he was going to die if he didn’t do something about his problem. In response, Galliano ripped off his shirt and exclaimed, “Does this look like the body of an alcoholic?”
Two years on, Galliano is clean-living and has attempted to atone for his actions by reaching out to Jewish leaders, ‘reading books on the Holocaust’ and reaching out to members of the fashion community, all with a view towards eventually returning to the industry fold.
Will he succeed? Who knows. Either way – good luck and god speed, John.