Makeup artist files $6M sex harassment lawsuit, records show

Sarah Bickram, a former makeup artist at the M.A.C. Cosmetics store at Roosevelt Field mall, filed a $6 million sex harassment suit against the company Thursday for allegedly failing to adequately address repeated sexual overtures from a supervisor.

Bickram, 31, a mother from Queens, started working at M.A.C in 2013, and a new male supervisor hired at the Garden City store in 2016 subjected her to “humiliating and degrading treatment” with lewd comments, touching and rubbing against her, and looking down her blouse, the suit said.

A complaint to the store manager, who was the supervisor’s friend, didn’t stop the behavior, and complaints to corporate management after Bickram took a medical leave were also unavailing, the suit alleged.

When Bickram returned, the supervisor had gotten a promotion at another store, the lawsuit said, while she was greeted with a hostile reception, no assurances he would be kept away from her if he came back to the store, and no firm offer of a job in another store.

She quit to escape a “toxic” environment. “The whole thing was very devastating to me,” Bickram said in a brief phone interview. The suit seeks damages for her loss of self-esteem, humiliation, anguish and financial loss, as well as punitive damages.

A spokeswoman for Estee Lauder Companies, the parent of M.A.C., declined to comment, and didn’t respond to a question about whether the supervisor accused of harassment still worked there.