Emily Ratajkowski and Robin Thicke: Blurred lines?
What is the truth?
Emily Ratajkowski has accused Robin Thicke of sexually assaulting her during the filming of a music video in 2013. The director of the video, Diane Martel, backs up Emily’s accusations.
“Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt the coolness and foreignness of a stranger’s hands cupping my bare breasts from behind.
“I instinctively moved away, looking back at Robin Thicke. He smiled a goofy grin and stumbled backward, his eyes concealed behind his sunglasses. My head turned to the darkness beyond the set.”
“I pushed my chin forward and shrugged, avoiding eye contact, feeling the heat of humiliation pump through my body,”
“I didn’t react – not really, not like I should have.”
Diane Martel. “I remember the moment that he grabbed her breasts. He was standing behind her as they were both in profile,”
“With that one gesture, Robin Thicke had reminded everyone on set that we women weren’t actually in charge.
“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.”
Let’s break it down
Both women tell convincing stories. There are no signs of deception about the incident in their words. Everything is told in the past tense which is what you expect when people are truthfully recalling past events.
Emily’s pronouns are entirely consistent all the way through. She owns every one of her actions and feelings with the words “I” and “my”. Thicke is “he”, “his” and his full name. There is no “we” or “us” which often show deception in stories like this one.
Nothing missing
Normally in an analysis like this, I’m quoting large chunks of text to show where deception could be occurring in someone’s words. In this case I can’t and it is what is missing from Emily’s words that’s good indicator of her truthfulness.
Emily adds no needless words to show the size of her feelings or to exaggerate any action. She speaks of her “humiliation” not “huge humiliation” or “total humiliation”. When you’re telling the truth, you are less likely to use words which embellish the story to try and convince someone you’re truthful. Emily offers no embellishments.
Emily doesn’t try to overly explain any of her actions or any of the situation. She’s brief and factual. Again, people being deceptive tend to try and over explain what happened giving needless details and reasons as to why certain things happened the way they did.
There are no gaps in her recalling either. At no point does she use words like “and then” which would have suggested she’s skipping over some detail. It’s an entirely linear account.
There’s more
In Emily’s words, there are two indicators of deception we should note.
“Suddenly, out of nowhere”. If we hear this from someone suspected of deceiving us, we pay attention to it. Very little happens out of nowhere without warning or a very good reason for it happening. It’s often a sign of someone saying they have no idea how it happened and certainly had nothing to do with it happening, when they have a very good idea.
We’re hearing “out of nowhere” from a victim here and I suspect she’s using the phrase in a similar way. It wasn’t an assault out of nowhere, I’d suspect that her instincts and experience warned her to be wary of Thicke and his actions.
“I didn’t react, not really”. This is negation. The “not really” changes the meaning to “I did react”. Emily goes on to say, “not like I should have done” and I take from these words that her reaction was mostly internal, and she wishes now with hindsight that her reaction had been different.
Conclusion
Emily and Diane give a case study in being truthful here. It is an extremely clean version of events with no room for doubt.
I hope they both get the resolution they want and deserve from this.