Robin Thicke wants to make one thing clear about the video he made with Pharrell Williams and T.I. for their 2013 smash hit “Blurred Lines.”
“You won’t see me making any videos like that ever again,” he vowed.
Two versions of the video, both directed by Diane Martel, were released and in the unrated cut, models Emily Ratajkowski, Elle Evans and Jessi M’Bengue appear topless. It was criticized by some as degrading to women, especially because the song’s lyrics were interpreted by some as misogynist.
“We had no negative intentions when we made the record, when we made the video,” Thicke told the New York Post. “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.”
(In 2019, Pharrell Williams also acknowledged he learned from criticism of the track. “I realized that there are men who use that same language when taking advantage of a woman, and it doesn't matter that that's not my behaviour. Or the way I think about things,” he told GQ. “It just matters how it affects women. And I was like, Got it. I get it. Cool. My mind opened up to what was actually being said in the song and how it could make someone feel.")
Thicke said at the peak of the song’s success, he had “lost perspective on my personal life and my music and what was appropriate … and why I was doing it.” He previously admitted to abusing Vicodin and alcohol while out promoting “Blurred Lines.”
Thicke told the Post the 2016 death of his father, Canadian actor Alan Thicke, made him realize he wanted to “spend my time wiser.”