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(Reuters) - French fashion house Christian Dior fired its star designer John Galliano on Tuesday after an online video clip circulated around the world showing him hurling anti-Semitic abuse at people in a Paris bar....  Read more …

(Reuters) - French fashion house Christian Dior fired its star designer John Galliano on Tuesday after an online video clip circulated around the world showing him hurling anti-Semitic abuse at people in a Paris bar.



Chief Executive Sidney Toledano said the "odious nature" of Galliano's behavior on the video led Dior to relieve him of his duties after 15 years as the label's chief designer and just three days before Dior's catwalk show at Paris Fashion Week.



"I very firmly condemn what was said by John Galliano, which totally contradicts the values which have always been defended by Christian Dior," Toledano said in a statement.



The sequence of events surrounding Galliano's departure included an almost Dior-free Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday and prompted Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman -- who has a deal to promote Dior perfume -- to voice her disgust with the British designer.



The saga started on Thursday evening when Paris police said they had been called to La Perle bar in Paris's hip Marais district where they found an inebriated Galliano delivering a torrent of abuse to a couple on the bar's terrace.



The officers escorted Galliano to a police station and then home. The couple complained that Galliano had hurled racist and anti-Semitic comments at them, an offence under French law.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/01/us-dior-galliano-idUSTRE7203HX20110301