Update: Just hours after news broke this morning that Estée Lauder planned to begin injunction proceedings against Brandon Truaxe and Deciem Beauty Group, Truaxe responded to the legal notice sent to him by a lawyer representing the Estée Lauder Companies in yet another series of email screenshots posted to Instagram.
In a message addressed to "Counsel Gelowitz," Truaxe states, "I have no further legal comments at this juncture but will advise you the instant I do," and again accuses Deciem's Board of Directors of having "committed or been accomplice to financial crimes and otherwise." He says that he will be looking for a lawyer "just as soon as our audience receives this update."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
Before sharing the screenshots, Truaxe had continued to post strange photos and messages to the Deciem Instagram account, including two unsettling images that directly address Donald Trump, and called out beauty and personal-care companies Coty and P&G in the captions.
This story was originally published on October 11, 2018, at 11 a.m. EST.
In a bizarre video shared to Instagram on Monday, Deciem founder Brandon Truaxe announced that the company would be shutting down all operations “until further notice.” This morning, after three full days of confusion and speculation among fans, social-media followers, and QAnon supporters, Truaxe posted another update: screenshots of a legal notice, which appears to have been sent by Mark Gelowitz, a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto, on behalf of the Estée Lauder Companies, which own a minority stake in Deciem, and spells out the company’s alleged intentions to sue Truaxe in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
“3 emails to say less than one word but more than 0 words,” Truaxe captioned the photo series, which shows the original email reportedly sent from Gelowitz summoning Truaxe to a Toronto court house to appear before a judge this morning at 10:30 a.m. ET to schedule a reading on injunctive relief, along with the company’s notice of application. Estée Lauder confirmed in a statement to CBC News that they have, in fact, taken legal action, but declined to comment further on the pending litigation.
The supposed filing shows that Estée Lauder seeks to remove Truaxe from Deciem’s Board of Directors, remove him from any employment at with Deciem (including President and/or CEO), and appoint Nicola Kilner — Deciem’s co-CEO, who Truaxe briefly eliminated from the company earlier this year before reinstating her position — as the sole interim CEO of Deciem. In addition, Estée Lauder asks to prohibit Truaxe from employing or terminating any Deciem staff, communicating with employees, suppliers, or business partners, and issuing statements on any of Deciem’s social-media accounts.
If Truaxe’s most recent post to the Deciem Instagram account is to be believed, he is currently in Amsterdam; this morning, he tagged the Hilton DoubleTree hotel chain to accuse them of placing a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s outside his suite. The series of photos also shows his room number and date of departure, implying that his presence in Toronto is not to be expected in court this morning. We’ve reached out to Deciem and the Estée Lauder Companies for comment, and will update this story when we hear back.