Russell Brand's inflammatory comment about fashion company Hugo Boss's Nazi roots may have shocked his audience at the GQ Men of The Year Awards, sponsored by none other than Hugo Boss, the Huffington Post reports, though the comedian's off-color remarks were entirely not off the mark.
"If any of you know a little bit about history and fashion, you'll know it was Hugo Boss [who] made the uniforms for the Nazis," Brand, who won the Oracle Prize of the Year, told the audience during his brief and memorable speech at The Royal Opera House in London. "The Nazis did have flaws, but they did look f**king fantastic, let's face it, while they were killing people on the basis of their religion and sexuality!"
The Sun reports that the event sponsers were offended and had the star promptly kicked out of the award ceremony's afterparty, though that wasn't all that the comedian said to get the fashion moguls of the luxury brand up in arms.
Before he finished speaking, Brand put a finger under his nose to impersonate Adolf Hitler and his infamous mustache before adding, "I'm a comedian and it's my job to make jokes about things. Hugo Boss, it's fair enough, he might not have known! Like, 'We're selling a lot of these... It's flying off the shelves. We had a lot of clients in the 30s and 40s, I can't remember all of them.' Did you make a lot of elasticated crotches, Hugo? Does it ring any bells?' Don't take life too seriously, soon we'll all be in the grave. Oh f**k!"
Later on, Brand got into it with GQ editor Dylan Jones on Twitter.
GQ editor: "What you did was very offensive to Hugo Boss." Me:" What Hugo Boss did was very offensive to the Jews." #GQAwards #nazitailor
— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) September 4, 2013
In the wake of Germany's post-World War I economic collapse, the original Hugo Boss was forced into bankruptcy, and eventually became a supplier for the National Socialist party's SS uniforms in the 1930s. Boss acknowledged his link to the Third Reich in 1997, and the New York Times reported on the clothing company's dark past that year.
"Of course my father belonged to the Nazi Party,'' Siegfried Boss said to the New York Times in '97. ''But who didn't belong back then? The whole industry worked for the Nazi Army.''
Brand had a far less flippant attitude about it, and was not afraid to mock the luxury clothing brand and the infamous evil dictator.
