CHICAGO, June 24: US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey is convinced she was turned away from a Hermes store in Paris because she is black and she plans to tell her millions of viewers about it, a spokeswoman said on Friday.

Ms Winfrey has also decided to boycott the store, the spokeswoman confirmed.

The luxury goods house issued a public apology on Friday after Oprah Winfrey called Hermes to complain. Hermes said in a statement that Ms Winfrey was denied entry on June 14 because she arrived after standard business hours.

But according to a report in the New York Daily News, Ms Winfrey believes she would have been admitted to the store had she been a white celebrity.

“If it had been Celine Dion or Britney Spears or Barbra Streisand, there is no way they would not be let in that store,” a friend of Ms Winfrey’s told the Daily News.—AFP