Nearly a year after firing embattled CEO Dov Charney, American Apparel on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The filing followed a deal with most secured creditors that will reduce the clothing company's debt from $300 million to no more than $135 million, which will lower interest expenses by $20 million a year. American Apparel also will set up a "comprehensive transformation strategy to revitalize the business and brand," according to a company statement. The Associated Press reported American Apparel has lost money every year since 2010.
American Apparel said creditors will receive equity in the company, which aims to complete the reorganization within six months. No layoffs were announced in the company statement.
Among the hardest hit by the bankruptcy will be Charney, 46, the company's founder and former CEO. Charney will lose just north of $8 million -- the amount his stock was worth on Friday, before the bankruptcy filing. At its peak in December 2007, shares in American Apparel climaxed at $16.80, shortly after it went public. On Friday, the shares closed at 11 cents.
Relative to the other shenanigans in the company's tumultuous history, the bankruptcy may actually be a pretty sedate affair. Here's a brief rundown of what American Apparel was like under Charney's reign:
Wearing a sock... and nothing else
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Rumors of Charney conducting business in less-than-appropriate attire abound. In addition to roaming the factory floor and working in his underwear, something
Charney told lawyers he did "all the time" for several months in 2003 and 2004, Charney is said to have once hosted a business meeting while wearing a single sock -- and without getting too graphic, just know that it wasn't on either of his feet.
The time Charney masturbated in front of a reporter
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In 2004, Jane magazine reporter Claudine Ko said
Charney masturbated in front of her multiple times while another female employee was present. Charney
confirmed the story in an interview with The New York Times, defending his conduct as "A, consensual; B, enjoyable for both parties; and C, occurred in a private setting."
American Apparel lets 1,600 unauthorized workers go
Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters
Borderline pornographic advertising
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Choking a manager, rubbing dirt in his face, calling him a "f*g"
Carlo Allegri / Reuters
In 2012, a former store manager accused Charney of choking him, throwing dirt at him, and referring to him with an anti-gay slur. According to a lawsuit filed by the manager, Michael Bumblis, Charney was upset with his store's sales and in a conversation loosed this "expletive-ridden diatribe:"
“Get your f**king s**t together f*g. Where is your f**king creativity? Get some f**king girls in bikinis to stand on PCH and have them waive a f**king American flag. Are you a f*g? Do you not want to see girls in bikinis? Are you banging that girl you were with in Vegas? What’s her name?”
Sexual harassment suits
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Charney has faced down multiple lawsuits filed by several former employees alleging sexual harassment. In two suits filed in 2005, Charney was accused of "using crude language and gestures, conducting job interviews in his underwear, ordering the hiring of women in whom he had a sexual interest and giving one of the plaintiffs a vibrator," r
eports The New York Times. In another lawsuit in 2012 (
which has since been thrown out), a former employee accused him of using her as a "sex slave."
Using sexually explicit language in the workplace
Gary Friedman via Getty Images
Since Charney's ouster in June 2014, the company has promoted a more inclusive brand, its new CEO, Paula Schneider, told CNN in an interview over the summer.
