Sephora Denies Shut Down is Over SZA Being Racially Profiled

Sephora is set to shut down every one of its stores on Wednesday — but it's not because of SZA.

The company, which will close it's 1,000+ stores for an hour-long "inclusion workshop", denied it had anything to do with the infamous racial profiling incident involving the Oscar-nominated singer — despite widespread reports.

Rather, the cosmetics giant said it was merely getting ready to launch its "We Belong to Something Beautiful" campaign, which has been in the works for a year.

"The plan to close our U.S. stores, distribution centers, call centers and corporate office for a one-hour inclusivity workshop with our 16,000 employees has been in development for over six months, timed with our first campaign chapter debuting on June 6th," the company said in a statement.

"While it is true that SZA's experience occurred prior to the launch of the 'We Belong to Something Beautiful' campaign, the campaign was not the result of this tweet."

It added: "However, it does reinforce why belonging is now more important than ever."

On April 30 SZA, herself a former Sephora employee, told her followers she had been racially profiled at a Calabasas store by a security guard she dubbed "Sandy Sephora."

"Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn't stealing . We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy," she tweeted.

The company replied: "Hi, SZA. We're sorry to hear about your experience at our Calabasas store and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We want to let you know we take complaints like this very seriously and are actively working with our teams to address the situation immediately."

When the R&B star followed up with "Can a bitch cop her fenty in peace er whut", Rihanna herself sympathized and even sent her a gift card, which SZA showed off on Intagram, along with a handwritten note which read: "Go buy yo Fenty Beauty in peace sis! One love."

The retailer claims Wednesday's workshop will be one of many more to come in the future, which will educate staff on "what it means to belong, across many different lenses that include, but are not limited to, gender identity, race and ethnicity, age, abilities, and more."

Last year, Starbucks enforced a similar shut down of all 8,000+ of its US stores for an afternoon of "anti-bias training".

This followed an incident in Philadelphia in which two black men were denied use of the bathroom while waiting for a friend, had police called on them and were ultimately arrested for trespassing.

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