Earlier this week, the world mourned the death of German fashion designer, creative director, artist, and photographer Karl Lagerfeld.
Lagerfeld, creative director of Fendi and Chanel, died at the age of 85 in Paris, France. But, following the announcement of his death, many began reminding the world of his sexist, Islamophobic, and countless controversial stances he voiced during the course of his life.
His Islamophobia sparked outrage multiple times. One of his most controversial moments took place in 2017 during a French talkshow. Lagerfeld claimed that Germany's acceptance of refugees from Muslim-majority countries was an "insult" to Jewish Holocaust victims.
"One cannot - even if there are decades between them - kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place," he said at the time.
"I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian and after four days said: 'The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust.'"
He had also criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for welcoming more asylum seekers from war-torn Muslim-majority countries including Syria. He called her policy a "huge error."
She "had already millions and millions [of immigrants] who are well integrated and who work and all is well ... she had no need to take another million to improve her image as the wicked stepmother after the Greek crisis," he said, according to The Telegraph.
It wasn't the first time Lagerfeld proved to be insensitive to Muslims.
In 1994, Chanel apologized over Lagerfeld's dress designs which included verses from the Qur'an. The designer said it was unintentional, as he thought the text was from an Indian love poem inspired by Taj Mahal.
The text on the dress read:
"He whom God guides is well-guided, and he who is abandoned by God will find no one to put him on the right road."
The head of Indonesia's top Muslim clerical body at the time, late Hasan Basri, said the words are "an insult to our religion," threatening Chanel's exports to Muslim countries altogether.
In response to the threat, Chanel's chief executive, Claude Eliette, said the three dresses "would be burned."
"I ask the rector and the theological commission of the mosque to present my deep apologies to all the Muslim community and I promise to remove from our models the calligraphies involved. The three dresses and the texts will be destroyed by incineration," Eliette said, according to The Independent.