Since releasing “Blurred Lines” in 2013, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams have faced controversy for all sorts of reasons.
In 2015, the two musicians were ordered to posthumously award Marvin Gaye a songwriting credit on the song, after a federal jury found them responsible for copyright infringement.
The songwriting process was also a topic of debate, with Robin claiming that he played a large role in creating the single, something he later admitted was untrue.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, he confessed to lying about his contributions to the song during the copyright infringement trial, saying, “I was jealous and I wanted some of the credit … I tried to take credit for it later because [Williams] wrote the whole thing pretty much by himself and I was envious of that.”
Then, there are the controversial lyrics, which got the song banned at official events for more than 20 British universities. Critics of the song argued that the lyrics promoted a culture of date rape, citing lines such as, “But you’re a good girl/The way you grab me/Must wanna get nasty.”