Where Is Stephan Marsan Now? All About the Brandy Melville CEO and His Controversies

Stephan Marsan was accused of antisemitism and racism, among other controversies, in the Max documentary ‘Brandy Hellville: The Cult of Fast Fashion’

Brandy Melville CEO and co-founder Stephan Marsan have come under fire for a number of accusations.

In the Max documentary, Brandy Hellville: The Cult of Fast Fashion, released on April 9, past employees accused Marsan of instances of antisemitism, racism and inappropriate behavior toward young women. The documentary featured interviews with a former store owner and former employees who worked in stores across the U.S. in various roles when they were teenagers.

All of the documentary participants described Marsan as a mysterious figure, with nearly no online presence and an overwhelming say in the day-to-day business of his many stores.

"He is not like the typical CEO that sits on a chair and makes a million dollars a year in bonuses while the company is sinking into debt," Franco Sorgi, who previously owned 11 Brandy Melville stores, told Insider in a 2021 exposé on the clothing brand. "He doesn't want nobody to know him because he's sitting on a pile of cash."

Related: Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion Will Shock You: All the Biggest Bombshells from the New Documentary

Marsan declined documentary producers' and PEOPLE's requests for comment, and representatives for Brandy Melville have not responded to PEOPLE's multiple requests for comment about the claims in the documentary.

From the allegations against him to what has changed since the controversies first came to light, here’s everything to know about where Brandy Melville CEO Stephan Marsan is now.

Who is Stephan Marsan?

Marsan is the son of Silvio Marsan, a manufacturer for fashion brands, per the documentary. Alongside his father, he founded Brandy Melville in Italy, his home country, and had 40 stores before he expanded into the U.S.

In 2009, the first U.S. location opened in Westwood, California, in the Los Angeles area. By 2021, there were 36 Brandy Melville stores in the U.S. Marsan is known to be elusive, never giving any interviews, per Insider, and staying out of the public eye.

According to Brandy Hellville, a brand employee who worked as a photographer had met him at the flagship store in California and described Silvio as bald and with braces, at the time, while Marsan was a redhead. Marsan also worked in the flagship store in New York City, where he had an office overlooking the retail floor.

What did former Brandy Melville employees say about Stephan Marsan?

In the documentary, several former employees alleged that Marsan sent antisemitic, racist and sexist memes and texts in a group chat. Insider obtained 150 purported screenshots of these messages, including one of Marsan allegedly editing his face onto Hitler’s body.

The group chat was named “Brandy Melville gags” and included over 30 men, per Insider, including Brandy Melville’s senior leadership: Marsan, his brother Yvan Marsan and chief financial officer Salvatore Rianna.

Sorgi told Insider that many people in the group chat partook because they didn’t want to get on Marsan’s bad side.

"Everybody will laugh at the most stupid joke he made, even if they were not funny," Sorgi said. "Everybody would kiss his a– like you can't even imagine. I wouldn't be surprised if people ... in the chat would post nasty stuff just to make him happy."

Additional screenshots of text messages obtained by the documentary makers showed Marsan allegedly sending a picture in which he folded a T-shirt so the letters on the print spelled out Hitler.

A former store owner featured in the documentary was asked on camera if he thought Marsan was antisemitic, to which he replied, “I don’t know…I don’t know. When I saw him wearing a Hitler outfit, I wasn’t surprised.”

What were Stephan Marsan’s rules about Brandy Melville employees?

Marsan also allegedly had a specific image for the employees at Brandy Melville, and the store developed a reputation for exclusively hiring "skinny White girls." As one former employee, Kali, described in the documentary: "The ideal was the White girl, mostly blonde, sometimes brunette."

In the N.Y.C. store, Marsan worked in an office on the upper level, overlooking the store. A former employee claimed that the girls working at the cash register had a button that would light up if someone who Marsan liked the appearance of walked in, and they were expected to take their photo and phone number to be recruited later.

"For Stephan, if they were really light-skinned and redhead, that was number one, like the top of the top," an Italian whistleblower, who was a former store owner, claimed in the documentary.

Before any of the regional managers could hire someone, however, they allegedly had to send a photo of them to the brand’s higher executives for approval.

Former employees at the N.Y.C. store alleged in the documentary that the employees of color, especially Black, were relegated to the stockroom or night shifts. When there were more Black employees than usual, Marsan allegedly started letting them go and hiring White employees.

Every day, the store’s employees were required to send photos to Marsan, and eventually, those became chest and feet pictures, a former staff member alleged in the documentary. The girls were not aware of where the photos were going or for what purpose.

"If Stephan didn't like some of them, he would send it back to me privately and say, 'Fire her,' " a former Italian senior vice president in the company claimed in the doc.

Is Stephan Marsan still the CEO of Brandy Melville?

Marsan remained in his position at Brandy Melville following the 2021 Insider exposé. He was sued by Luca Rotondo, a former senior vice president at Brandy Melville, and other former Canadian store owners in two separate lawsuits against Bastiat USA, the company that oversees Brandy Melville stores in the U.S., that alleged they were fired because they refused to fire employees based on race and appearance.

Bastiat USA denied that it "has ever fired an employee on account of his or her race." However, Marsan and Brandy Melville representatives declined to comment.

As of April 2024, Marsan continues to serve as the brand's CEO.

Where is Stephan Marsan now?

Per Insider's 2021 reporting, Marsan continues to keep a low profile as he always has but he is still CEO of Brandy and is operating the expanding business. He is said to spend most of his time between Europe and N.Y.C., where he reportedly bought a $9.6 million townhouse as of 2021.

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