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Why Emily Ratajkowski Didn’t Want to Write That ‘Blurred Lines’ Essay

Emily Ratajkowski wasn’t sure she wanted to write the story of what happened to her on the set of “Blurred Lines.”

Earlier this month, a chapter from Ratajkowski’s forthcoming book, My BodyLeaked online was the text of. She describes in it the dynamics of making the video, including the moment where Robin Thicke allegedly grabbed her breasts and took her money without her permission. (A representative of Thicke did not respond to TIME’s request for comment.) Ratajkowski, who spoke in special episodes of TIME100 Talks with Tarana and Anita Hill about the fear that she felt as she tried to tell her story.
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“It was not an essay that I wanted to write, because I am familiar with the way that sexual assault allegations—even just the terms ‘sexual assault’ and ‘allegations’—have such weight in our culture. It’s picked up by the media, and it’s turned into clickbait,” she said. “I hope that we live in a world where people will understand that these things are more complicated than what the media [reports] and the way that things are perceived online.”

Continue reading: Emily Ratajkowski – How I Learned To Let Go

On the next page, the author described the points she wanted to highlight in the essay. There were a lot of women on the crew. “Compared to a lot of jobs that I was working at the time as an unknown model, I actually did feel quite comfortable,” she said. “But ultimately, those women on set were not in power.”

Ratajkowski reflected upon the leak and also shared her emotions when she saw these allegations pulled from the book, without any context. “It was extremely hard for me,” she said. “The importance of having control over your story and your narrative is crucial.” But, she added, another major theme of the book is understanding that control is only possible to a certain extent.

TIME magazine published Official excerpt taken from the first edition My BodyRatajkowski shares her struggle to control her body and image over the years and how her experience giving birth to her son taught her to surrender. She writes in searing detail about the terror she experienced in labor, before coming to a realization about her body’s strength and resilience: “It knew what to do,” she writes. “I just needed to stay out of the way.”

You can watch the complete conversation between Ratajkowski and Hill on TIME100 Talks.

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