Emily Ratajkowski accused singer Robin Thicke of groping her while they filmed the music video for “Blurred Lines,” the song that launched Thicke’s music career. The video also made Ratajkowski a star, as she was one of the supermodels who appeared in various states of undress in the video, which also featured singer Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I. The supermodel, 30, made the allegation in her upcoming book, My Body, which will be published next month.
In an excerpt from the book published in the Sunday Times of London this weekend, Ratajkowski claimed the future Masked Singer judge grabbed her bare breasts during filming. “Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind. I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke,” Ratajkowski wrote.
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The shoot started off well for Ratajskowski, but Thicke was apparently drunk and began to misbehave, Ratajkowski alleged. “He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set,” she recalled. Director Diane Martel then asked her if she was ok. The alleged incident made Ratajkowski feel “naked for the first time that day,” she wrote, adding that she avoided contact and felt the “heat of humiliation pump” through her body. “I didn’t react – not really, not like I should have,” she wrote.
Martel corroborated the incident, according to the Sunday Times. “I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts,” Martel said. “One in each hand. He was standing behind her as they were both in profile. I screamed in my very aggressive Brooklyn voice, ‘What the f- are you doing, that’s it! The shoot is over!’” Martel also said Thicke was drinking and “sheepishly” apologized for his behavior. “I don’t think he would have done this had he been sober,” she said.
Although “Blurred Lines” was not Thicke’s first single, but it propelled him to brief superstardom in 2013, thanks in part to its video. There was both a “clean” video and an “unrated” version, which featured Ratajkowski, Elle Evans, and Jessi M’Bengue topless. Since the song’s release, it has proven troublesome for Thicke. The song was criticized for objectifying women and many found the lyrics misogynistic. The song was also at the center of a plagiarism lawsuit, as the late Marvin Gaye’s family accused Thicke and his collaborators of ripping off the song “Got to Give It Up.” In December 2018, the Gaye estate won, with a judge awarding the family $5 million.
During a February 2021 interview with the New York Post, Thicke admitted he wouldn’t make a video like the “Blurred Lines” one ever again. “We had no negative intentions when we made the record when we made the video,” he said at the time. “But then it did open up a conversation that needed to be had. And it doesn’t matter what your intentions were when you wrote the song … the people were being negatively affected by it. And I think now, obviously, culture, society has moved into a completely different place. You won’t see me making any videos like that ever again!” Thicke now serves as a judge on The Masked Singer, which airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.ย
