Elton John Joined by Celebs in Dolce & Gabbana Boycott
The fashion designers spoke about traditional families to an Italian magazine.
— -- Elton John is being joined by other celebrities in his call for a boycott of the fashion label Dolce & Gabbana after one of the label's namesakes called babies conceived by alternative methods "synthetic babies."
Domenico Dolce is quoted by the Italian magazine Panorama as saying, “You are born and have a father and a mother. Or at least that's how it should be.” The designer went on to say of children conceived via methods like surrogacy and IVF, “what I call children of chemistry, synthetic babies do not convince me."
The comments from Dolce -- who was romantically linked to his business partner Stefano Gabbana for over 20 years -- prompted John to post a photo of the designers on his Instagram page.
The photo’s caption reads, “How dare you refer to my beautiful children as 'synthetic.' And shame on you for wagging your judgmental little fingers at IVF … Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again. #BoycottDolceGabbana.”
John, 67, and his husband, David Furnish, married last December after being together since 1993. The pair are parents to Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John and Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, both born with the help of a surrogate.
“I am probably the happiest guy in the world right now,” John told “Good Morning America” in 2013 of his family life. “They've brought more joy to me in the small amount of time I've had them.”
Dolce & Gabbana made headlines earlier this month when the label produced a motherhood-focused fashion show in Milan that featured some models carrying babies down the runway.
Dolce's comments to Panorama prompted stars such as Victoria Beckham and Ricky Martin to follow John’s lead in calling for a Dolce & Gabbana boycott. John's Instagram photo and caption has been liked nearly 17,000 times.
Gabbana at first told an Italian newspaper he was surprised by John’s response to the comments.
“I did not expect it from a person who I believed -- I underline, I believed -- to be intelligent like Elton John,” Gabbana told Corriere della Sera. “He is ignorant, in the sense he ignores that there are different opinions to his which are equally worthy of respect."
The designers clarified their opinions in a statement to ABC News overnight.
"I am very well aware of the fact that there are other types of families and they are as legitimate as the one I've known,” Dolce said in the statement.
“It was never our intention to judge other people's choices. We do believe in freedom and love,” said Gabbana.
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