Steve Madden has apologized to Alice + Olivia designer Stacey Bendet after the fashionable pair got into an ugly verbal fracas in the lobby of a Florida hotel.
“I’m sorry for losing my temper with Stacey. I have the utmost respect for her … I was raised better than that,” shoe guru Madden told us. In a video of the dispute, which Bendet captured and posted online, Madden tells her, “You can go f - - k yourself” after she confronted him about allegedly copying her designs.
In 2018, Alice + Olivia sued Madden-owned label Betsey Johnson when it came out with handbags featuring a face design similar to Bendet’s StaceFace. The case was settled.
Madden tells Bendet in the video, “You copy all the time. We were making faces way before you.” Bendet commented, “As a woman, it is important to defend yourself, to stand up for yourself, and to be an example to other women so that they know it is never OK to be bullied or intimidated by a man.”
For more on Steve Madden’s rant, listen to this episode of the Page Six podcast, “We Hear“:
Madden is working on a book, “The Cobbler: How I Disrupted an Industry, Fell From Grace, and Came Back Stronger Than Ever,” out in May.