A former American Apparel employee, Irene Morales, is pressing charges of sexual abuse against founder Dov Charney. Now 20 years old, Morales alleges that Charney began making inappropriate advances when she was 17, and threatened her with employment termination if she didn’t comply. She claims that he demanded that she have sex with him on her 18th birthday, and proceeded to have forced sex with her for eight months following the first instance. Morales says she was coerced with promises of job advancement and didn’t come forward immediately because she was afraid of the embarrassment that might accompany public scrutiny. Dov Charney has been charged with several sexual harassment suits, but hasn’t been found guilty in court. Under Charney’s leadership, the retail giant gained notoriety for its overtly sexual advertising, mostly featuring AA employees. The retailer has also been charged for appearance-based hiring discrimination. Saddled with debt and controversy in equal measure, American Apparel named Tom Casey, formerly of Blockbuster, President of the company in October 2009. [WWD]
After slamming Arthur co-star Jennifer Garner’s technique about a month ago (her mouth tastes like “a brand of red velvet cake [but?] she smashes you in the mouth [in] those kissing scenes. If I was Ben Affleck, man I’d be pissed off”), today Russell Brand went on The View to tell the ladies everything you need to know about kissing Katy Perry: apparently, his wife’s lips are “a conduit to paradise! A tunnel to another world. They are redemption! Salvation! Glory! Poetry!” So now you know that if you ever run into Brand, talk about kissing. To make him feel comfortable, use lots of whacked-out metaphors and feel free to gush. And unless you’re willing to hear him talk about it in detail on national television, don’t kiss him. [INeedMyFix]
Taking the tactic that offense is the best defense, Lindsay Lohan is suing the store Kamofie & Company for selling the surveillance tape that allegedly shows her stealing the $2,500 necklace that led to her current bout of legal troubles. [AmyGrindhouse]
Hate Selena Gomez because she’s dating Justin Bieber? Well Selena’s sick of hearing you moan and groan in her direction. The pop star’s new song “Who Says?” is a manifesto to the Bieber-crazies that make a sport of tearing her down: I’m sure you got some things / You’d like to change about yourself / But when it comes to me / I wouldn’t want to be anybody else. [Earsucker]
Charlie Sheen admits that he’s “losing [his] mind” [CelebDirtyLaundry] but some GQ editors discovered that it’s long gone. Twenty years ago, Sheen self-published a poetry book, Piece of My Mind, although “poetry” is a generous way of describing it; his “poems” are actually just clusters of unrelated words broken up by commas: “Turtle, android, pain,” he writes in a particularly moving line. [Starcasm]
Jessica Alba is having a second baby! [DailyStab]
