Emily Ratajkowskiis speaking candidly about the recent allegations she made againstRobin Thicke.
The 30-year-old model accused the singer of groping her in an excerpt from her upcoming debut bookMy Body. The model is now speaking to PEOPLE about why she didn’t initially come forward about the incident, which allegedly took place while on the set of the music video for Thicke’s controversial 2013 single “Blurred Lines.” In the uncensored version of the video, she and two other models appeared topless.
“I was an unknown model and if I had spoken out or complained, I would not be where I am today; I would not be famous,” Ratajkowski tells PEOPLE exclusively at the CoinGeek Conference cocktail party this week.
Emily Ratajkowski.Eugene Gologursky/Getty
Ratajkowski attributes her decision to speak out now to her growth and change in perspective over the years and says she’s hoping fans are able to recognize that through her book.
“I wrote a book about the evolution of my politics and that includes a lot of different experiences from my career and my life and the way that I felt and thought about those experiences have evolved,” she adds. “I hope people are able to read the essay and understand the nuance behind these kinds of situations.”
“He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set. [The director, Diane Martel’s] voice cracked as she yelled out to me, ‘Are you okay?’ " she continued.
Martel confirmed Ratajkowski’s allegations toThe Sunday Times. “I screamed in my very aggressive Brooklyn voice, ‘What the f— are you doing, that’s it!! The shoot is over!!'” she recalled, adding: “Robin sheepishly apologized. As if he knew it was wrong without understanding how it might have felt for Emily.”
She noted that “everything had been very sweet and enjoyable” until then, and she threatened to shut down production, but when she checked on Ratajkowski, the model “was very professional and said we could go on.”
Ratajkowski wrote that she was “desperate to minimize” the weight of the situation. “I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body,” she noted. “I didn’t react — not really, not like I should have.”
RELATED VIDEO: Emily Ratajkowski Accuses Photographer Jonathan Leder of Sexual Assault in Powerful Personal Essay
TheI Feel Prettyactress tells PEOPLE that though it’s “complicated,” she’s hoping her story can serve as an example to other women or models who have gone through similar situations.
“I think all women, we all play the game, capitalizing off of your image, commodifying their body, that’s the world that we live in and I would never tell a woman that she shouldn’t but I also would hope that they understand that that’s sort of a double-edged sword,” Ratajkowski says.
“I would like the way that we think about women and men to change and the power dynamics that are unspoken, to change,” she explains.
Read Emily Ratajkowski’s collection of essaysMy Body, which is available Nov. 9 from Macmillan Publishers.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go torainn.org.
source: people.com
