In Emily Ratajkowski’s upcoming memoir, the actress/model accuses singer Robin Thicke of groping her on the music video set of his controversial 2013 hit single, “Blurred Lines.” The video, of which two versions were released, one for broadcast and the other “unrated,” features Ratajkowski and other models dancing around Thicke and the song’s co-producer Pharrell Williams with various props. In the broadcast version, the women are scantily clad in short shorts and crop tops, while the “unrated” version has them topless in underwear. Apparently, Thicke took advantage of this situation to make unwanted advances toward the women.
In an excerpt published by The Daily Beast from the memoir, titled My Body, Ratajkowski describes the incident in question. “Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind,” she writes. “I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke.” As noted by Consequence Of Sound, this squares with the video director Diane Martel’s account to The Sunday Times Of London. “I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts,” she recalled. 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*ck are you doing, that’s it!! The shoot is over!!”
Previously, the song was subject to a lawsuit filed by the family of R&B singer Marvin Gaye, who said that the song blatantly copied Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got To Give It Up.” The Gaye estate won the case, with a judge granting the family $7.4 million in damages for copyright infringement and adding Gaye’s songwriting credits to “Blurred Lines.”