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Pharrell Williams says 'Blurred Lines' criticism is out of context

The singer said 'the last thing I want to do is degrade'

Antonia Molloy
Thursday 18 September 2014 09:26 BST
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Pharrell dismissed the controversy surrounding "Blurred Lines"
Pharrell dismissed the controversy surrounding "Blurred Lines" (Getty)

Pharrell Williams has again reiterated his belief that the controversy surrounding “Blurred Lines” was overblown.

Speaking about last year’s collaborative track with Robin Thicke, the “Happy” singer dismissed denigration of the song, which was widely criticised for objectifying women and trivialising sexual violence.

“I’m not surprised because it’s the way that media works,” he told Stylist.

“My point to you is, anything can be taken out of context and even though there were models that were topless and there… I’m sorry, read the lyrics… I’m talking about the portion that I wrote, I’m not talking about TI’s rap.”

That would be the rap including the lyrics "Nothing like your last guy, he too square for you/ He don't smack that ass and pull your hair like that".

But Pharrell, 41, said he didn’t regret his involvement: “If you know anything about me, and my career, you know how I love women, and the last thing I want to do is degrade.”

The multiple Grammy Award-winner also suggested that it is actually women who run the world; they just don’t know it yet.

“Power is a perception and it’s one that you guys [women] were raised to ignore and believe something that’s false, like a male dominated world,” he told the magazine.

He went on: “Is this really a man’s world? […] Do men give birth to men?”

But Pharrell didn’t appear to think that “Blurred Lines” was part of the problem, saying that it was important for him to stand in “whatever boxes I’d like to as a creative”.

And "Blurred Lines" is definitely one creative box he’s very much standing in, as it was revealed on Monday that Thicke did not actually write the song - because he was high on painkillers and alcohol.

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"The biggest hit of my career was written and produced by somebody else, and I was jealous and I wanted some of the credit," Thicke, 37, said in a statement filed at the Los Angeles federal court.

The statement was written in response to a lawsuit claiming the pair stole from Marvin Gaye’s 1977 song “Got to Give it Up”.

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