Watch out! Rolex blasts Italian leaders
Print Edition
Luxury watchmaker Rolex demanded an apology yesterday from Italy’s prime minister and interior minister for saying that violent demonstrators who devastated parts of Milan last week were “rich, spoiled brats with Rolexes.”
The company took out full-page advertisements in major national newspapers to contest comments both politicians made after police fired tear gas at protesters who threw stones and petrol bombs and broke shop windows.
In his address to parliament on the riots — protests against Milan’s Expo — Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said police photos showed that one of the demonstrators who defaced a bank window appeared to be wearing a Rolex.
“Yesterday, on the streets I saw bastards wearing hoods and rich, spoiled brats with Rolexes,” Alfano said.
Later, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi thanked the citizens of Milan for cleaning up the damage caused by “those with Rolexes who went around destroying shop windows.”
The Swiss watchmaker, which sponsors major sporting events, was not pleased.
Rolex’s CEO for Italy, Gianpaolo Marini, wrote in the open letter in the newspapers that the low quality of the pictures of the violent demonstrators left considerable doubt as to whether they were wearing Rolexes and whether they were real or the cheap knock-offs sold on Italian streets.
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