Emily Ratajkowskihas reportedly accusedRobin Thickeof groping her in an excerpt from her upcoming debut bookMy Body.
In the excerpt, Ratajkowski wrote that she initially enjoyed working on the music video, which featured an all-female crew, until she and Thicke, 44, were alone on set. “Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind,” she wrote. “I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke.”
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Representatives for Robin Thicke and Emily Ratajkowski did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
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“He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. [The director, Diane Martel’s] voice cracked as she yelled out to me, ‘Are you okay?’ " she continued.
Martel reportedly confirmed the account toThe Sunday Times. “I screamed in my very aggressive Brooklyn voice, ‘What the f— are you doing, that’s it!! The shoot is over!!'” she recalled, adding: “Robin sheepishly apologised. As if he knew it was wrong without understanding how it might have felt for Emily.”
She noted that “everything had been very sweet and enjoyable” until then, and she threatened to shut down production, but when she checked on Ratajkowski, the model “was very professional and said we could go on.”
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
Ratajkowski added that Thicke was “a little drunk” and “didn’t seem to be enjoying himself in the same way” during filming.
TheI Feel Prettyactress wrote that the incident made her feel “naked for the first time that day,” and she was “desperate to minimise” the weight of the situation. “I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body,” Ratajkowski noted. “I didn’t react — not really, not like I should have.”
“With that one gesture, Robin Thicke had reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge. I didn’t have any real power as the naked girl dancing around in his music video. I was nothing more than the hired mannequin,” she wrote.
Although Martel intended to subvert power dynamics with the video, with the half-naked models “mocking him and the male gaze,” the single has long been scrutinized for promoting rape culture. “I know you want it,” Thicke croons throughout the track, which earned him two Grammy Award nominations and spent 12 consecutive weeks atop theBillboardHot 100.
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“My mind opened up to what was actually being said in the song and how it could make someone feel. Even though it wasn’t the majority, it didn’t matter. I cared what they were feeling too,” Williams said in 2019. “I realized that we live in a chauvinist culture in our country…[I] didn’t realize that some of my songs catered to that.”
Reps for Pharrell Williams and T.I. did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Thicke told PEOPLE in February that hewas abusing pills and alcoholaround the time “Blurred Lines” came out, as he was also going through a divorce with ex-wifePaula Patton, who alleged infidelity, physical abuse and drug use (Thicke has denied the cheating and abuse allegations).
“You don’t realize you’re not in control,” Thicke said. “Fame and a lot of those things — they got to me. I was in a bad place. I’m happy to have closed that chapter.”
Read Emily Ratajkowski’s collection of essaysMy Body, which is available November 9 from Macmillan Publishers.
source: people.com
