Peel away the facade of fabulousness and the lifetime of even essentially the most powerful style star is often much more fragile than it seems. Take John Demsey, the previous Executive Group President on the Estée Lauder Corporations. A 3-decade Lauder stalwart, Demsey helped steer the corporate from a mid-sized privately-run family concern to a publicly-traded cosmetics giant value, at its peak, over $100 billion.
Last winter, as his father lay gravely ailing and his mother began battling cancer, the remaining of Demsey’s world unexpectedly imploded. In early March 2022, Demsey was forced to retire from Lauder after he reposted an Instagram meme that contained the N-word. Demsey insisted he’d misinterpreted the meme, which was initially shared by the rapper Chingy.
Despite removing the post inside hours, pressure from each Lauder employees and “call-out” accounts like Estee Laundry saw Demsey’s 31-year profession at Lauder end in exactly per week. Branded a racist — and quieted as a part of a legal agreement with his former employer — Demsey had been canceled.
![John Demsey at home](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/20230815_NYP_045-Edit.jpg?w=683)
“It felt like I’d been the victim of an identity theft,” Demsey, 67, told The Post in an exclusive interview, his first because the Instagram fiasco 18 months earlier. “I made a mistake and I corrected it. However the life I had before this happened simply doesn’t exist anymore.”
The mementos of that life cover nearly every surface of the six-story East Side townhouse, which Demsey, who’s divorced, bought in 2018 and shares with his 14 year-old daughter, Marie-Hélène, eight dogs and a pair of cats.
Demsey has spent the vast majority of his post-Lauder existence here — sometimes indignant, sometimes depressed, often exercising (he’s dropped 35 kilos), but mostly cooped-up and clearly contrite.
![Leonard Lauder, John Demsey, Sean Combs and William Lauder](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026932030.jpg?w=1024)
“I almost feel like I’ve been under house arrest,” he deadpanned. “And after I do exit, people act as in the event that they’ve sat shiva for me.”
Within the multi-billion dollar world of luxury and wonder, few stars forged a wider shine than Demsey. Tall and imposing, the Stanford-educated exec was equally adept at creating buzz and earning money.
“Demsey has at all times had a deep sense of what consumers want before they need it,” said Professor Thomai Serdari, Director of the Fashion and Luxury MBA Program at Latest York University, of Demsey’s tenure at Lauder. “He is superb at commercializing brands … while providing the glue that makes ventures work.”
![John Demsey and June Ambrose at his home](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026754762.jpg?w=1024)
Demsey’s presence at Lauder was particularly potent in two areas: far-sighted promoting campaigns and his chairmanship of the MAC AIDS fund, which has raised $500 million for HIV research over the past 25 years.
Within the ad world, Demsey is best known for the a long time of VivaGlam promotions he oversaw for MAC Lots of their stars were black — RuPaul, Rihanna, Diana Ross, Missy Elliott, Nicki Minaj. And Demsey’s intimacy with African-American artistry provided him with a level of racial maneuverability rarely afforded to white execs.
“Long before the era of George Floyd, John was probably the most culturally attuned people when it got here to inclusivity,” longtime Wall Street Journal fashion reporter Teri Agins told The Post. “John was accepted by black people since it at all times felt like he was within the culture.”
![John Demsey with Diana Ross](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026930989.jpg?w=1024)
![John Demsey with Rihanna](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000030049147.jpg?w=681)
Wearing a tan suit and Zegna sneakers, Demsey displayed each incredulousness and humility as he recounted the events of the past 12 months. He freely described his actions on social media as “silly and impulsive” — a casualty of the near-manic Instagramming which overtook him during Covid.
“I used to be posting like 20 or 30 times a day,” he said. “People really responded to it and it just became this type of a thing.”
The Chingy meme, Demsey explained, appeared randomly in his feed — a Covid-era Big Bird tending to a bed-ridden Snuffleupagus accompanied by the phase “My n***a Snuffy done got the ’rona at a Chingy concert.”
![John Demsey at home](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/20230815_NYP_161-Edit.jpg?w=683)
Demsey insists he read n***a as “nanna” — a nod to Snuffleupagus’ grandmotherly get-up.
“I’ve never used that word in my life,” Demsey said of the racial slur he’s accused of promoting.
Despite the fact that Chingy himself went on Instagram to defend him, nobody else will ever really know what Demsey was considering when he pushed that share button.
Branded a Lauder liability — and a poster boy for “white privilege” — Demsey’s demise reflects each the punitiveness of this current cultural climate along with a misguided belief in his own indispensability.
![Richard Parsons at a Time Warner podium](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026756395.jpg?w=1024)
![Teri Agins on the red carpet](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026756384.jpg?w=683)
“I used to be a little bit of an impresario,” he said. “And people businesses and folks that I supported were very successful because that’s the way in which I used to be.”
Indeed, what does matter, say longtime Demsey admirers, is his track record of hiring African-Americans.
Take Sean “Puffy” Combs, who Demsey delivered to Estée Lauder in 2004 back when other beauty groups were reluctant to sign the rapper for a fragrance deal. Barely a 12 months later, Combs’ scent Unforgivable had achieved $1.5 million in sales per week, in keeping with The Latest York Times.
![John Demsey with three dogs in front of his blue door](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/20230815_NYP_217-Edit.jpg?w=683)
“John is one among the great guys,” said Richard Parsons, the previous Time Warner and Citigroup CEO and Chair of the Apollo Theater Foundation on whose board Demsey served for a decade. “Way back to the ‘90s he was a pacesetter in putting people of color in magazines and photo shoots — he made a difference.”
Years before DEI mandates became standard, Demsey was providing exposure and paychecks to many African-American singers, stylists and makeup artists.
“For somebody who’s contributed a lot to black culture, to hip-hop culture — to have his profession end like this is disheartening in every way,” said stylist June Ambrose, whose clients have included MAC campaign stars comparable to Missy Elliott and Mary J. Blige.
![John Demsey's home](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/20230815_NYP_348-Edit.jpg?w=1024)
A white man who earned nearly $10 million in 2021, Demsey is definitely privileged. “But simply because you’re privileged,” Ambrose continued, “doesn’t mean you’re racist.”
Demsey concedes he’s disenchanted by the chums who didn’t publicly support him after he left Lauder. Harder still was the lack of the Lauders themselves, whom he had considered an clan.
“I loved the family, particularly [chairman emeritus] Leonard Lauder, because I felt that their values were so contrary to what other corporations were about,” Demsey said.
Agins, for one, never imagined the corporate would actually let Demsey go. “Sure, John’s actions were sloppy, but I figured he could be suspended after which Lauder would move past it,” she told The Post.
![John Demsey, Tom Ford, Aerin Lauder](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026756352.jpg?w=678)
Yet because the very public face of a really public company, Demsey stood little likelihood at surviving the scandal.
“You can not earn enough accolades to divorce yourself from racial sensitivity,” says Earnest Owens, writer of the book “The Case for Cancel Culture.” “This is about impact — not intent.”
Still, Owens concedes that Demsey was impacted by the company house-cleaning that followed the murder of George Floyd. “Had this happened before summer 2020, [Demsey] may need had a really different final result,” he said.
![Mary J. Blige and John Demsey](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000027384304.jpg?w=680)
![Nicki Minaj, John Demsey and Kim Kardashian](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000027381450.jpg?w=681)
Yet while Demsey was hardly the one style leader charged with racial insensitivity — Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, as an illustration, issued a mea culpa for “publishing images or stories which were hurtful or intolerant” during her profession — he was one among the few to truly wind up unemployed.
But with Estée Lauder stock down nearly 50% since his departure, Demsey can have actually been more indispensable than the Lauders realized.
Indeed, two years after he brought Sean Combs to Lauder, Demsey also convinced the corporate to launch fragrance and wonder lines for Tom Ford. Last November, Lauder snapped up Ford’s fashion label for a cool $2.8 billion — the corporate’s first foray into the apparel arena because it was established nearly 75 years ago.
![RuPaul in one of the first Viva Glam campaigns for MAC](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026756608.jpg?w=768)
Demsey’s home is a dizzying assemblage of art, furniture and particularly photography. There are nearly 600 photos in total — from historic prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson to outtakes from Demsey’s many MAC campaigns.
It’s from here that Demsey is readying his next acts. He has no other selection, he said.
“I don’t need to be often known as the ‘canceled guy’ — for my legacy to be defined by just three hours” on social media.
![](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026754763.jpg?w=713)
![The book features a forward by Demsey and was written by fashion scribe and CBS Sunday Morning-contributor Alina Cho (above with Demsey).](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026754745.jpg?w=1024)
Still sure by his reported Lauder non-compete, Demsey has taken on a senior advisory role with L Catterton, the private equity group tied to LVMH chief Bernard Arnault, where he’ll help discover and grow news business opportunities. Although the headlines accompanying Demsey’s appointment made note of the Lauder saga, NYU’s Serdari believes the business world has moved past it.
“People make mistakes,” she said, “but that shouldn’t take away from his expertise and mental ability.”
There’s also “Behind the Blue Door,” a hefty coffee-table book detailing the museum-like treasures throughout his home, which he co-authored with “CBS Sunday Morning” contributor Alina Cho and is inspired by the vintage blue door fronting his townhouse. The book will probably be released on October seventeenth.
![](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/09/NYPICHPDPICT000026751964.png?w=663)
Demsey is also returning to the social swirl he once dominated. In June he hosted a party for stylist Ambrose at his home where folks like actor Zachary Quinto and Bergdorf Goodman exec Linda Fargo appeared to have moved on from the meme.
And, so has Demsey — who’s father ultimaately passed away in June 2022, while he moved his mother from Ohio to Latest York so as to take care of her. “I’m not done — in no way,” he said. “I’ve got loads more in me, loads more to say. The world is still a really exciting place.”
dkaufman@nypost.com