Sephora Closing All Stores This Week For 'Inclusion Training' In Wake Of SZA Incident
June 3, 2019, 2:10 p.m.
SZA says a Sephora employee called security on her in April, assuming she was stealing products.
Sephora will close all U.S. locations on the same day this week for mandatory "inclusion workshops," a little over a month after a popular black recording artist was allegedly subjected to racial profiling in California.
On April 30th, a sales associate at Sephora allegedly accused Grammy-nominated singer SZA of stealing products at the chain's location in The Commons shopping center in Calabasas, California (a city just beyond Los Angeles proper, home to several A-list celebrities and the Kardashians).
According to SZA’s tweet, which succinctly detailed the racial profiling incident, a woman she referred to as Sandy called security to ensure that she wasn’t stealing any of the Fenty Beauty products she was browsing.
Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing . We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy
— SZA (@sza) May 1, 2019
Can a bitch cop her fenty in peace er whut
— SZA (@sza) May 1, 2019
Naturally, the tweet went viral, and Sephora tweeted an apology to SZA the next day.
Hi, SZA. We’re sorry to hear about your experience at our Calabasas store and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We want to let you know we take complaints like this very seriously and are actively working with our teams to address the situation immediately.
— Sephora (@Sephora) May 1, 2019
SZA used to work in the skincare department at a Sephora, and also appeared in advertisements for Fenty Beauty—the very makeup line she was surveilled while shopping for. Apparently, this is why Sephora called her "family" in another tweet.
You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores.
— Sephora (@Sephora) May 1, 2019
Emily Shapiro, a spokeswoman for Sephora, told Reuters: “We have been informed of an incident at our Calabasas store and in addition to reaching out to SZA directly, we are gathering more information about the incident in order to take the proper next steps. We take complaints like this very seriously, profiling on the basis of race is not tolerated at Sephora.“
It's unclear what happened to the employee at the Calabasas store, but Sephora is making good on their promise to "address the situation immediately," taking a page out of Starbucks' book and shutting down all of their U.S. stores (roughly 460 of their 2,500 plus locations worldwide) this Wednesday for mandatory racial bias training. The cosmetics retailer estimates that 1,600 employees will participate in these workshops on June 5th. The company has more than 20 locations in New York City.
In a video posted to Facebook on May 23rd, Sephora announced that along with the retail locations, all of their distribution centers and corporate offices in the U.S. would be closing for inclusion workshops as well. However, the company claims this country-wide shutdown has nothing to do with SZA being racially profiled in Calabasas.
Following SZA’s tweets, Rihanna sent her a Fenty Beauty gift card with a handwritten note saying: "Go buy yo Fenty Beauty in peace sis!"
Sephora did not immediately respond to Gothamist for comment about the anti-bias training.
