American Apparel Employees Share Their Weird Experiences Working With Dov Charney

Working for the former CEO was definitely interesting.

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Former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney is known for being a creep who liked to indulge in sexual exploits with his workers. From wearing nothing but a sock during business meetings, to throwing dirt on an employee, his behavior resulted in quite a few lawsuits and loads of crazy stories before he was finally ousted in 2014. 

Now, as the retailer faces possible bankruptcy, Nylon has reached out to employees to hear their personal accounts of working at the company, especially under Charney. Check out some of the weirder excerpts below and head over to Nylon to read the rest of the stories. 

"He would fly me out to New York on a redeye flight Friday night after working all week, make me work all weekend in New York, then fly home on a redeye Sunday night and get to work in L.A. Monday. I had to stay at his apartment a few times and he was such a weirdo! He had a maid/cook. He would never flush the toilet—I had to flush his shit multiple times."

"But then he would come into a store and tell a manager she would have to switch to backstock or leave the company because he wouldn’t have her face on his floors. He was a shitty parent to a lot of young people who didn’t give a fuck about anything. Maybe that’s Dov’s personal legacy."

"He definitely had severe mood swings though, and would call you at all hours of the night to complain about something. He could get pretty brutal with name-calling and would use stuff from your personal life against you."

"I went to his mansion a few times, but he wasn’t here. It was super sparse. I’ll never forget one room had three columns with a VHS boxset of all of The Godfather movies. That was all that was in there."

"Unfortunately, he has a chip on his shoulder and a sort of God complex, á la Hugh Hefner, and thought he could get away with anything. He did have a lot of girls on the books that didn’t work, paid off girls to not talk, etc. He was super flagrant with money, which was likely a huge cause of his downfall."

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