A top executive at beauty behemoth Estée Lauder (EL) has been forced out of the company after posting a racist meme on his personal Instagram account.
John Demsey was not fired, a company spokesperson said, but was informed he had to leave, so he chose to retire effective last Friday.
At Estée Lauder, Demsey oversaw a vast portfolio of household name beauty products, including cult favorites Clinique and MAC.
The meme, which has since been deleted from his Instagram account but preserved by Twitter (TWTR) and other beauty industry watchers, contained a racial slur and played on racist themes about the pandemic and minorities who suffered from it.
Demsey was initially suspended last Thursday and said he hadn't read the meme before posting it.
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He then issued an apology via the same account, which has hundreds of thousands of followers.
“The meme is the furthest thing from what I stand for and I should have never reposted it,” he added. “I hope that in time people will judge me, not for this awful mistake, but for my lifetime of words and actions, which demonstrate my respect for all people.”
A regulatory filing in 2021 showed Demsey earned $9.6 million a year, making him one of the most highly compensated employees at Estée Lauder.
In the wake of the George Floyd murder in 2020, the company pledged $10 million to “support racial and social justice and to continue to support greater access to education” over three years.
Estée Lauder has a market capitalization of $106 billion.
