Karma’s a bitch. And nobody knows this better than Mike Jeffries, the openly gay CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch. The 70-year-old, who has a long history of making disparaging comments about ugly, fat, uncool, unpopular people in the media, is officially unemployed after being forced out stepping down from his role as CEO last week amid sinking A&F sales.
“It has been an honor to lead this extraordinarily talented group of people,” Jeffries told A&F employees before packing up his office. “I believe now is the right time for new leadership to take the company forward in the next phase of its development.”
No word yet on what Jeffries will do next, but just in case he needed some help thinking of something, we’ve compiled a list of five careers he may want to consider now that he’s out of a job.
Guest star on American Horror Story: Freak Show
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He’d fit right in alongside Bette and Dot Tattler, Jimmy Darling, Ima Wiggles and Twisty the Clown. And the makeup department would hardly have to do anything.
Become a Clairol hair dye model
Maintaining a youthful appearance has always been of the upmost importance to Jeffries. He once told a reporter, “Dude, I’m not an old fart who wears his jeans up at his shoulders.” At 70 years old, he’s all about the hair dye, the spray tans, the collagen, and the Botox. What better way to promote his message of eternal youth than by posing as a hair model for Clairol’s nice’n’easy “Born Blonde” brand of boxed hair dye?
Work the perfume counter at Macy’s
On his private Gulfstream G550 jet, Jeffries used to insist that the cabin constantly be spritzed with A&F cologne, among other outrageous demands. Clearly the man enjoys cheap, headache-inducing fragrances. So why not surround himself with the thing he loves by getting a job behind a perfume counter at Macy’s? He could spend his days spraying the air while gabbing with the salesgirls about the cute guys in the men’s department.
Audition for America’s Next Top Model
Over the years, Jeffries received criticism for A&F’s overtly sexual ads geared towards teenagers that often featured half-naked, gym-toned frat boys surrounded by bikini-clad female admirers.
When confronted about the raciness of A&F’s models, Jeffries once said: “Listen, do we go too far sometimes? Absolutely. But we push the envelope, and we try to be funny, and we try to stay authentic and relevant to our target customer. I really don’t care what anyone other than our target customer thinks.”
Since he has such strong ideas about models and modeling, perhaps he should consider auditioning for a spot on America’s Next Top Model. We’d be curious to see how far he’d make it in the competition, and whether or not he’d butt heads with judge Tyra Banks.
Become a volunteer spokesperson for Weight Watchers®
Jeffries has never cared for ugly, fat, uncool, or unpopular people. In 2006, he said he only wanted “good-looking people” in his stores because “good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that.”
“Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they’re about to jump on a surfboard,” he continued. “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
Now that he’s jobless, perhaps Jeffries should consider offering helpful solutions for folks who may want to lose weight, rather than just criticizing them for their sizes. We think Weight Watchers® would be an excellent company for him to consider partnering with as a volunteer spokesperson.
Assuming, of course, they’d take his call.
Related stories:
Amidst Terrible Sales, Mike Jeffries, A&F’s Gay CEO, Announces He’s Leaving The Company
Abercrombie And B*tch, Please: CEO Mike Jeffries’ 5 Worst Quotes In GIF Form
New List Reveals The Top 50 Most Powerful Openly Gay Business Leaders In The World
Graham Gremore is a columnist and contributor for Queerty and Life of the Law. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
grahambower
Why so much hate?
BJ McFrisky
I suspect Graham Gremore woke up on the wrong side of his web this morning.
Cam
@grahambower:
I’m guessing this was targeted in such away because that guy has lived his life worshiping all that is shallow. If he was going to live by and demand others live such standards all around him, it is somewhat fair that he be examined under the very attitude he promoted.
Garrett
Maybe the local retirement center can hire him to promote the water aerobics class or their Knitting & Craft program.
Or adult diapers. He’d be a great spokesman for adult diapers. He can finally make them chic… for all the good-looking cool people.
MudgeBoy
I love a&F clothes. They fit, they last forever and feel great. I also love the models. Call me shallow.
Cam
@MudgeBoy:
Your choice in clothing that you like isn’t shallow. He has made weird and ridiculously shallow comments over the years, that is why he’s being called that.
Just because the CEO is something of a douchebag doesn’t mean you can’t still like your clothing.
stanhope
You forgot a very relevant option Klu Klux Klan Imperial Wizard. I love Abercrombie clothes and as a person of color was not going to pass on them because of a bigot CEO. I am proud that I was part of the class action lawsuit that opened the AnF doors to people of color as models and brand representatives I.e. Salespeople. Abercrombie has been losing money like crazy. I hope they can hang on as I love the clothes especially now they no longer forbid black 🙂
Daveliam
An eye for an eye, I see. Graham never fails to ‘ironically’ stoop to the exact levels that he condemns. Yes, this guy is a terrible person for making fun of the way that people look. ALL people who do that are pretty terrible. Including bloggers……
robho3
Michael Jefferies is not openly gay.
Cam
@Daveliam:
Being called out and painted with the brush you used to paint others is not quite the same thing.
i.e. Should we never call out Rush Limbaugh for being a hypocrite, or Alan Keyes for a bigot?
MarionPaige
Didn’t everybody love this guy when Abercrombie & Fitch was making money? What’s the difference between Jeffries and Jobs? They both imprinted their particular Take on consumerism and both were kicked out when sales declined.
Abercrombie’s strategy of making their shit look expensive and exclusive is not that different from Apple making it’s crap look expensive and exclusive.
If Jobs had had his way, fat unattractive poor kids would be walking around with Apple ware
MarionPaige
If Jobs had had his way, fat unattractive poor kids PROBABLY WOULDN’T be walking around with Apple ware
Ladbrook
@MarionPaige: You have no idea what you’re talking about. Fat, unattractive kids (ie: tech geeks) MADE Apple what it is. Plus, 1/2 the people working at Apple would probably repulse Jeffries. Jobs didn’t care what you looked like OR what you wore (as evidenced by his own personal wardrobe choices). He only cared about what you contributed to the company. Jefferies made clothes (good clothes, but overpriced) for eye-candy. That was what he cared about. Money and eye-candy. Jobs loved geeks. He made his fortune selling to them.
Daveliam
@Cam: I think we should absolutely call out bigots and hypocrites. I don’t think that making fun of the way someone looks because you think it’s wrong that they make fun of the way people look is a winning strategy. It’s petty and, when it falls into a pattern of pettiness, does little service to the author.
musctop
@Daveliam: Sorry, Dave, but when you ‘live by the sword, you die by it.’ To Jeffries, anybody who was not a perfect teen extra small was not only invisible to him and his company, but they were TOLD in 2006 they were not wanted as customers. You live in that kind of vapid, shallow world, you’re going to get judged by it too. No pity for him at all here.
MarionPaige
Can people NOT see the marketing strategy in declaring that something is exclusive (i.e. for pretty, rich, thin etc people)? By declaring that something is exclusive, you get the very people you claiming to exclude running out and buying your product.
I think it was in the tele-movie “The Pirates of Silicon Valley” that dramatized how Steve Jobs was convinced that he was the leader of The Cool Kids and how “IBM-type Engineers” had no place at Apple. In the movie, the Jobs character is shown interviewing and insulting a job candidate he (Jobs) considered un-cool. Jobs is shown asking the guy if he was still a virgin (as I recall). And, there is the infamous declaration from Jobs that Microsoft Engineers had no style (which was just Job’s way of saying Microsoft wasn’t Cool).
BTW, engineers are not by definition fat and unattractive.
MarionPaige
“Pirates of Silicon Valley” – Are You A Virgin
http://youtu.be/fwYy8R87JMA
MarionPaige
other Corrections;
Jobs shirts / sweaters were shipped to him in bulk from the Manufacturer
“the shirts were actually designed specifically for Jobs by Japanese designer Issey Miyake”. Sounds sorta kinda exclusive to me.
Job’s fortune came from selling Pixar to Disney
Saint Law
The concern trolls acting all hurt on behalf of this effigy ought to consider the fact he chose that ‘face’ OF HIS OWN FREE WILL!
Ladbrook
@MarionPaige: HE SOLD SHIRTS YOU UNWASHED OVERUSED DOUCHEBAG. HE DIDN’T EVEN DESIGN THEM. He ripped them off from Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Brooks Brothers. He’s a 70-yr-old piece of shit who thinks 20-yr-old surfers want to do HIM and not his wallet. He is NOT Steve Jobs and probably doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath with that man. But, yeah, we get it – You have a rock-hard, 2-inch boner for Mr. Jeffries. It’s just too bad that Jeffries doesn’t have one for you.
heatstroke1981
He looks like future Biff in Back to the Future 2.