After landing a job as a sales associate at Gucci, Los Angeles-based Melanie Moradi showed off on TikTok the lavish uniform — including several designer pieces and leather goods — that the luxury brand bestows new retail employees.
Moradi’s April 4 unboxing video, aptly set to the song “Gucci Gang” by Lil Pump, amassed 9.4 million views. In it, Moradi hauled two giant shopping bags filled with blouses, trousers, blazers, a bag, a belt, socks, and two pairs of shoes. “Should I just keep the bag and ghost?” she captioned the video.
All new employees are given the same items, she told Insider, though the men’s attire differs slightly, and staffers accumulate more pieces the longer they’re employed.
However, the thrill of the haul was short-lived. Eleven days later, Moradi wrote that she was “fired” for her viral TikTok, and had to give the items back. “Maybe read the social media guidelines when you get hired or don’t because I hated the job anyway,” she wrote in her follow-up video.
The saga has gone wildly viral. Moradi told Insider that she’s glad it has stirred debate about “the standards and conditions that we’re accepting at work,” and “not being so willing to sacrifice our mental health, our well-being, or freedom of expression for the sake of a job.”
But commenters seem to be taking Gucci’s side, with many saying she sabotaged her new job in the name of TikTok views.
‘They didn’t fire me for the video itself. They fired me for my caption,’ Moradi said
Moradi told Insider that she failed to read the onslaught of PDF documents in the HR portal, which delineated the company’s policies about social-media use, before she signed them.
Gucci’s guidelines permit employees to post about the brand, she later learned, but they are cautioned to use their “best judgment” in doing so. An executive who subsequently flagged the TikTok to Moradi’s store manager wasn’t humored by her quip about ghosting with the free goods, Moradi said.
Her former manager then asked her to take her video down when it had just 360,000 views, and she promptly complied with that request in a text exchange verified by Insider. But on April 12, she was told in person that her sales-associate job was being terminated.
“They didn’t fire me for the video itself. They fired me for my caption,” she said. “HR told me it didn’t shine a good light onto Gucci.”
Moradi said she was made to give the items back, as she was still within her 90-day probationary period of employment. Gucci did not immediately return a request for comment from Insider.
After that, she decided to set her TikTok live once again.
Viewers said that she was rightfully punished, but Moradi says that she wished the matter was ‘handled with more grace’
While many TikTok commenters showed support, others criticized Moradi for her actions, especially given the luster of the Gucci name.
“Uh it’s not gucci’s loss, they need decent employees who keep it lowkey considering that its a luxury brand lmfao,” one top commenter wrote. “The fact that people don’t see it’s obvious you will get fired is mind blowing,” another comment said.
Several viewers said Moradi was responsible for “fumbling the bag,”
Moradi has continued to defend herself against criticism. In a video she posted last week, the last one she said she would make, she said she thinks people are lauding the brand too much.
“A lot of you guys were hailing Gucci as the end-all-be-all of employers,” Moradi said. “It’s still retail.”
She told Insider that she did not seek out the Gucci gig, but that it fell into her lap through a close friend who works for the company. But almost immediately, she said she was miserable, waiting on customers and standing on her feet all day.
She said she saw the initial opportunity and her subsequent termination as somewhat fated.
“I’m a very spiritual person,” she said. “I feel like the universe heard my call and answered my blessings. I was very relieved to get let go.”
“I just wish the situation was handled with more grace, compassion, and understanding,” she added.
