“[T]here is nothing wrong in the magazine,” Gijrath’s said in a statement via the Dutch news site Villamedia. “[Hoeke] presented [the offensive article] as a joke, but it most certainly was not a joke. It was an interpretation [of a fashion style].”
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Gijrath went on to explain that the publication has nothing to apologize for and that the editor-in-chief’s credibility was “undermined” by the way she worded her apology.
“She should have said, ‘We did not realize this interpretation is such a touchy subject. We never meant any harm and offer our sincere and upright apologies,'” explained Gijrath.
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Despite the outrage over the offensive statements, Gijrath isn’t expressing any remorse over the situation and has no intentions to print a retraction of the issue. “[We] will not be silenced,” he wrote, adding that “people are totally off limits when calling both the magazine ‘Jackie’ and Eva Hoeke racist. ‘Jackie’ is even produced by an editorial staff that is of mixed origins.”
In the aftermath of the article, Eva Hoeke stepped down from her post at the magazine’s editor-in-chief after Rihanna blasted the editor and her team on Twitter.
Did you find the magazine’s comments about Rihanna offensive?