Well obviously this store keeper did not know who Oprah Winfrey was when she asked her to see a handbag. Oprah was in Zurich because she was attending the wedding of her dear friend Tina Turner. Oprah was casually dressed while shopping around and went into a handbag store.
Oprah tells the entire story to Entertainment tonight.
“I go into a store and I say to the woman, ‘Excuse me, may I see the bag right above your head?,” Oprah told ET. “And she says to me, ‘No. It’s too expensive.’”
You can see what else happens here:
Word of the Winfrey incident somehow got to Trudie Goetz, the owner of the boutique, who is ironically a friend of Turner’s and attended her wedding. Reportedly, Goetz profusely apologized to Winfrey for the “misunderstanding,” and said the sales woman failed to recognize Winfrey.
Switzerland’s national tourism board issued a more direct apology, with spokeswoman Daniela Baer telling the Associated Press, “we are very sorry for what happened to her.”
The head of corporate communications for Zürich Tourism, Christian Trottmann, told CBSNews.com the incident was “obviously very regrettable.”
Meanwhile, the Zürich Tourism representative said he would encourage African-American families to not be put off by the Winfrey incident because the shopkeeper’s attitude isn’t reflective of the city as a whole.
“You’ll find here very friendly people,” Trottmann told CBSNews.com. “We are, I would say, quite an open-minded city. We are used to having people from all nations and all cultures.”