Who, Me? No, Him

"All my life I have fought against prejudice, intolerance and discrimination, having been subjected to it myself. I can see that this whole affair has caused a lot of upset and sadness. I apologize because the man you see up there [in the video] is not John Galliano."

Who it is hasn't been revealed by Mr. Galliano. It looks like him, it has the sound of his voice, and the body language is a dead ringer for his, but it's not him. Because what's emanating from his voice is pure bile, hateful invective that the real John Galliano testifies he would never commit himself to. For he hasn't a racist cell in his body.

Besides which, although his abusive and threatening and insulting slurs which were directed at a number of women who were absolute strangers to him, have not lingered in his memory. He cannot recall ever having uttered such hateful slanders. On second thought, it might have been him, but he was obviously not in possession of his senses.

Those had been taken out of his possession by the evils of addictions to alcohol, to sleeping pills, to Valium. Nothing illegal about any of those substances. And nothing untoward about entering a bar conveniently located close to where he lives, even while under the influence. He wasn't driving, he was merely locating himself where others were also disporting themselves.

So the genius of haute couture behind Dior and the Galliano brand absolutely and without any equivocation in his part denies the charges levelled against him of racism and anti-Semitism. The damage wrought to his reputation, to his acceptance in polite, elite social circles, to his future as a designer and businessman, has been catastrophic.

He has suffered. Enormously.

Not least at the grief he suffered when his father and then his "dear friend" and business partner died an untimely death. Which was why he required the release from his anguished state of mind accessed with the ameliorating use of alcohol and barbiturates. So it was he, but not yet he who called one woman "dirty Jewish face" and "dirty whore a thousand times".

And it was John Galliano, but yet not John Galliano who told a museum curator at Le Perle that she was a "dirty whore", another a "f----- Asian bitch", and yet another during a previous incident, a "f----- ugly Jewish bitch". Not was it he who shouted at two Italian women "People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f----- gassed."

Clearly an unfortunate instance of mistaken identity.

And the complainants? The real John Galliano has launched a counter-suit for defamation of character. Which character? Take your pick.