Christian Dior, the French fashion brand, has dropped American actress Sharon Stone from its advertising in China after the actress suggested the country’s earthquake was "bad karma," media reported on Friday.

The May 12 earthquake left at least 68,516 people dead and 365,399 injured nationwide in China as of Thursday noon, according to the Information Office of the State Council on .

    "Due to some customer reaction we have decided to pull her image from all of the department stores and from all of China," Christian Dior China said in a statement.

    "We just want our customers and fans to realize that her personal comments are not related to the company and of course we don’t support any type of commentary that will hurt the feelings of our customers," Dior said.

    The 50-year-old screen star remarked last Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival that the earthquake that devastated southwest China’s Sichuan Province might have been the result of bad "karma" since Chinese are "not nice" and "bad things" happen to them.

    Stone on Wednesday apologized for her "karma" comments. She said she felt "deeply sorry for my inappropriate words and acts, which have hurt the Chinese people’s feelings." But many in the country said they’ll never forgive her.

    On qq.com, a survey found that 69 percent of about 250,000 respondents said they didn’t accept her apology and will never forgive her.

    Films featuring Stone would be banned from any UME cinema in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, the Beijing Times quoted Ng See-Yuen, founder of the UME Cineplex chain, as saying on Wednesday. 

    Irish-American actress Stone became world-famous for "Basic Instinct" (1992) and was nominated for a leading actress Oscar for her performance in "Casino" (1995), according to film database IMDB.com. But she’s also been a frequent nominee at the Razzie awards, an alternative "roll of dishonor" highlighting the year’s worst cinematic achievements.

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/30/content_8283080.htm