Emily Ratajkowski has accused Robin Thicke of groping her bare breasts while they were filming the music video for his 2013 hit Blurred Lines, according to her bombshell new book.
The supermodel, now 30, claims the R&B star, now 44, had been drinking when he sexually assaulted her on set, reaching around her from behind and cupping her breasts in both hands.
At the time, the model was naked from the waist up for the controversial video which catapulted both her and Thicke’s careers eight years ago and was criticized for promoting date rape culture.
Ratajkowski makes the damning allegation in her new book ‘My Body’, set to be released next month, according to the Sunday Times of London.
DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives for Thicke and Ratajkowski for comment. Multiple attempts by the Times to contact Thicke’s reps were also unanswered.
Emily Ratajkowski has accused Robin Thicke of groping her bare breasts while they were filming the music video for his 2013 hit Blurred Lines (seen above)
The supermodel, now 30, claims the R&B star, now 44, had been drinking when he sexually assaulted her on set (pictured together in the music video)
Ratajkowski says the shoot – shot with an all-female team where the only men allowed were the performers – was fun until Thicke appeared to get ‘a little drunk’ and his behavior changed.
Then, ‘out of nowhere’ she says she felt someone’s hands on her breasts – turning to realize who it was.
‘Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind,’ alleges the model-turned-actress.
Ratajkowski makes the damning allegation in her new book ‘My Body’ (above)
‘I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke.’
Ratajkowski claims the singer-songwriter ‘stumbled backward’ and smiled at her, before the set director – who noticed what had happened – stepped in.
‘He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses,’ she writes.
‘My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. [Director Diane Martel’s] voice cracked as she yelled out to me, ‘Are you okay?”
In the book, Ratajkowski says she felt ‘the heat of humiliation pump through’ her body after the alleged fondling and suddenly ‘felt naked for the first time that day.’
The supermodel says she didn’t speak out in the moment saying she felt ‘desperate to minimize’ what happened.
‘I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body,’ the book reads.
‘I didn’t react – not really, not like I should have.’
Ratajkowski says she is speaking out years later as she didn’t let herself come to terms with what had happened at the time.
She says she was then reminded of the alleged sexual assault when she noticed Thicke had blocked her from Instagram.
Set director Martel confirmed Ratajkowski’s account of the incident in the Times’ report.
‘I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts, one in each hand,’ she told the paper.
‘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!”
According to her, Thicke had been drinking and ‘sheepishly’ apologized after the alleged groping incident and acted as if he was ‘contrite’.
‘As if he knew it was wrong without understanding how it might have felt for Emily,’ she said.
Martel said she believes Thicke’s actions were spurred by his drunken state.
‘I don’t think he would have done this had he been sober,’ she said.
Fondled: Ratajkowski writes that Thicke grabbed her bare breasts from behind while she was topless. She claims that he appeared to be intoxicated
Martel said she halted the shoot and told the record company it was over but the alleged victim ‘said we could go on’.
The director described Ratajkowski as ‘very professional’ and ‘the star of the video.’
‘We kept on and Emily was phenomenal. She’s really the star of the video,’ she said.
‘She’s fully mocking him and the male gaze with her beautiful shpe and ferocious energy.
‘She’s playful, not seductive. And quite hilarious.’
However, she lamented that Thicke’s actions undermined the feeling of female empowerment she had hoped to create on the set.
The aim had been to flip the gender power roles on their heads with semi-naked women spurning the advances of the men.
‘With that one gesture, Robin Thicke had reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge,’ she said.
‘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.’
At the time of the video shoot, Thicke was married to actress Paula Patton, with whom he shares an 11-year-old son, Julian Fuego Thicke.
The two separated in 2014, and Patton cited in her divorce filing his alleged abuse toward her, as well as drug abuse and infidelity as reasons for their separation.
While this is the first time Ratajkowski has spoken out about the alleged groping incident, the 30-year-old has described the Blurred Lines video as the ‘bane’ of her ‘existence.’
‘I wasn’t into the idea at all at first. I think I came off as a bit annoyed in the video,’ she admitted in a 2015 profile for InStyle UK.
‘Now, it’s the bane of my existence. When anyone comes up to me about Blurred Lines, I’m like, are we seriously talking about a video from three years ago?’
This isn’t the first time Thicke has been accused of groping a woman.
In 2013, a socialite posted a photo of the married singer groping her butt on her Instagram page at a party following the MTV VMAs.
Thicke’s wife was also at the party at the time.
Blurred Lines went to number one worldwide but it was the video of the three semi-naked models – Ratajkowski, Elle Evans and Jessi M’Bengue – along with Thicke, Pharrell Williams and rapper T.I. that captured the most attention.
While the initial version of the video didn’t feature nudity, Thicke released a second cut a week later that included topless footage of the three models.
The explicit video and the song’s lyrics – which included ‘I hate these blurred lines, I know you want it’ and ‘Must wanna get nasty’ – sparked instant controversy.
Rape victims said the lyrics were similar to those spoken by their attackers and it was slammed for promoting rape culture, sexism and the objectification of women.
This February, Thicke claimed there was ‘no negative intentions’ with the nature of the video and lyrics but admitted he wouldn’t release a song like it today.
‘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,’ he said.
‘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!’
But, despite the controversy, Blurred Lines video catapulted both Ratajkowski and Thicke further into the spotlight.
Ratajkowski has since expanded from modeling into acting, and now writing.
She is also an advocate for women’s health issues.
Thicke pictured with his ex-wife Paula Patton in 2014
In 2018, Ratajkowski married the Uncut Gems producer Sebastian Bear-McClard.
Meanwhile, the song launched Thicke’s music career.
In February of this year, he returned with his eighth studio album On Earth, And In Heaven, and is also a judge on The Masked Singer.
Following the break-up of his marriage, Thicke has kept a lower profile.
He moved on with April Love Geary, whom he reportedly met in 2014.
They welcomed their first daughter, three-year-old Mia Love, in 2018, and they got engaged on Christmas Eve of that year.
Their second daughter, Lola Alain, was born in February 2019, and April gave birth to a son, Luca, in December of 2020.
Ratajkowski’s book My Body is a series of essays chronicling moments in her life an career ‘while investigating the culture’s fetishization of girls and female beauty, its obsession with and contempt for women’s sexuality, the perverse dynamics of the fashion and film industries, and the grey area between consent and abuse.’
It is described as a ‘deeply honest investigation of what it means to be a woman and a commodity from Emily Ratajkowski, the archetypal, multi-hyphenate celebrity of our time.’
The book, published by Macmillan Publishers, will be released on November 9.
Thicke with fiancee April Love Geary
Blurred Lines also proved to be trouble for Thicke and his collaborators from a financial sense.
The estate of the late singer Marvin Gay won a $5.3 million judgment against him and Farrell after accusing them of lifting passages of Blurred Lines from Gaye’s song Got To Give It Up, from 1977.
Thicke claimed in court that he had not actually written any of Blurred Lines, despite being listed on the project as a songwriter.
At the time of the original ruling that Williams and Thicke had plagiarized the song, some legal scholars and copyright experts excoriated the decision, claiming that it was based on a general feeling that the two songs were similar, rather than being focused on specific musical aspects that they shared.
In a 2015 piece for The New Yorker, legal scholar Tim Wu wrote that the decision was a ‘serious error’ because it focused on superficial similarities.
‘The Gaye estate’s copyright covers only the notes of his song (the composition), and not the way it was played (the sound recording). These copyrights are separate,’ Wu wrote.
He claimed the judge was ‘legally obliged to throw out the case,’ rather than letting the jury come to its original conclusion, as the note sequences in Blurred Lines aren’t shared with Got To Give It Up, even though the two songs sound similar to many listeners.
However, a panel of judges mostly upheld the decision on appeal.