By Alexandra Abumuhor
American model Emily Ratajkowski recently opened up about her experience while filming on set of 'Blurred Lines' with singer Robin Thicke.
And the 30-year-old claims the 44-year-old inappropriately groped her bare breasts on the set of the music video back in 2013, "Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind," she wrote in her upcoming book 'My Body'
"I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke.'' She continued.
“He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. (the music video's director, Diane Martel’s) voice cracked as she yelled out to me, “Are you OK?”
"I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body,” she writes. “I didn’t react — not really, not like I should have.”
“I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts. One in each hand. He was standing behind her as they were both in profile.” Martel said.
The video and the song received a good deal of criticism at the time, slammed by many for its sexist and misogynistic message, with some people suggesting that it promoted rape culture.
“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,” Emily wrote.
Diane revealed she screamed at the Canadian singer “I screamed in my very aggressive Brooklyn voice, ‘What the f**k are you doing, that’s it!! The shoot is over!!’”
“I don’t think he would have done this had he been sober,” she said.
Thicke “sheepishly apologized” after the incident.
In 2015, Thicke and ‘Blurred Lines’ collaborators Pharrell Williams and T.I. were successfully sued by Marvin Gaye’s family, claiming the 2013 song copied Gaye’s 1977 single ‘Got To Give It Up’. An attempt to appeal the verdict failed in 2018, but cleared T.I. of charges.
My Body is due for release November 9.
