SALON HARASS SUIT
AVANITY FAIR ordained “dream team” colorist is being sued by a 21-year-old stylist who says he made her life a nightmare. Danielle Chipoco has hired the bare-knuckle law firm run by Fox News legal analyst Arthur Aidala to champion her case against David Michaud and the Frederic Fekkai Salon, where she claims to have been “subjected to repeated sexual harassment, discrimination and abusive behavior” while working in the company’s SoHo salon. According to the suit, filed Friday in Kings County Supreme Court, Chipoco reported to management that Michaud’s verbal and physical abuse was causing her “pain, anguish and embarrassment” and was allegedly told “in sum and substance” Michaud “was never going to change.” She was his assistant from July 2015 to July 2017. Fekkai (photo) is also named in the suit, though company reps insist he is no longer involved with the salon chain. Chipoco’s lawsuit charges that Michaud, a Parisian stylist who came to New York in 2011, told her she looked like a “prostitute,” claimed that he “is the only guy (she) needs in her life” and checked her phone without permission. She also claimed that Michaud would “hit (her) in the head and pull her hair” causing her both pain and embarrassment. She also accuses her former boss of insulting her Latin-American heritage and telling her that she should be his house cleaner. The suit also claims that Michaud asked Chipoco to make drug purchases for him. “Our client was a young hairstylist looking forward to starting her career, instead she was subjected to multiple incidents of harassment and abusive conduct while working at the Fekkai salon. She stands by the allegations in her complaint and looks forward to her day in court,” attorney Imran Ansari, of the law firm Aidala, Bertuna & Kamins, P.C. told us.
“We are disappointed that Ms. Chipoco’s attorney chose to ignore the information we shared with him when he first threatened to sue if Frederic Fekkai Salons did not pay his client a substantial sum of money. We consider the allegations in the complaint to be totally without merit and will vigorously defend the claim in the appropriate venue,” according to the salon’s attorneys.
Michaud is a bit of a rock star on the cosmetology scene, thanks in no small part to a fawning 2012 Vanityfair.com piece in which V.F. beauty director SunHee Grinnell called him part of the “dream team” responsible for her “fab” hairdo.