It was years later, when I was scrolling through Instagram half distracted, my thumb moving busily over the screen, that a photo of Robin Thicke and his much younger girlfriend appeared in my feed. I recognized her face and long, lean body, realizing that I’d met her years before in LA when we were both working models, shooting swim and lingerie e-commerce in shitty warehouses in Alhambra and Vernon. She’d just had a baby, E! News announced. I looked through her photos, studying the wideness of her smile next to the bloated softness of her partner’s jawline. “I love you baby daddy!” one caption read.
I clicked on Thicke’s handle, surprised to see my screen fill with white. “User Not Found” and “No Posts Yet” were placed next to his name. I’d been blocked. I racked my brain to figure out why. Had I said something in the press that might have offended him? Then I remembered something that had happened on the “Blurred Lines” set that I’d never told anyone about, something I hadn’t allowed myself to acknowledge until that moment, half a decade later: He did something he wasn’t supposed to do.
It was later that day, when Thicke returned to the set, a little drunk, to shoot just with me. I could tell that his mood from earlier had shifted—he didn’t seem to be enjoying himself in the same way. He didn’t like the lack of attention he was getting from the people hired to make his music video.
Now it was just him and me, alone on the tundra soundstage. He was dressed in a black suit and I was in nothing but white sneakers and a flesh-colored thong. The same three notes; same Diane yelling through her megaphone; same sweat dripping; same “Everybody get up!”
Again I danced as ridiculously as possible. Diane yelled excitedly, “You’re fucking funny! Make that face again!” Robin put his sunglasses on as he sang along, his vague annoyance palpable.
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. Diane’s voice cracked as she yelled out to me, “Are you okay?”
I nodded, and I may have even smiled, embarrassed and desperate to minimize the situation. I tried to shake off the shock. I walked away from the set and the warm lights, crossing my arms over my bare chest. I felt naked for the first time that day. The music stopped. I stood by the monitor for a moment and glanced around at my new friends. No one, not one of us, said anything.
Diane finally spoke. “Okay, well, no touching.” She addressed no one in particular, her megaphone now hanging loosely at her hip. 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. Neither did any of the other women. Despite how many of us were there and how safe I’d felt in their presence, we were in no position to hold Robin Thicke accountable on the set of his music video. We were working for him, after all. We paused awkwardly, and then we continued shooting.
When journalists asked me about the video over the years, I didn’t allow myself to think of Robin Thicke’s hands on my breasts, or of the embarrassment I’d felt standing naked in front of Diane. I was defensive—protective of the environment she had tried to create on set and of the other young women who seemed like they could’ve been my friends. I was also ashamed—of the fun that, despite myself, I’d had dancing around naked. How powerful I felt, how in control. I wondered: What if I had yelled in Robin Thicke’s face and made a scene? Stopped the shoot? Maybe my big break never would’ve happened.
In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.
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.
My Son, Sun
I WAS FOURTEEN the first time Owen forced himself on me. We were lying on the crusty carpet of his mother’s condominium. It was early morning, and I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open. I wanted water, but there was none. I remember the way his skinny jeans tightened over his erection, and I remember the dirty shoelace he used as a belt. I’d told my parents I was sleeping over at a friend’s house so I could stay out all night and go to house parties. Owen, who was sixteen, had said that’s what I should do. He’d positioned himself as my guide to a new school and a new world. I believed he was my way into meeting new people. It was only later that I realized he didn’t have many friends himself. My status as a hot freshman girl was what got him the invite to those house parties in the first place.