In a new Washington Post interview, Chrissie Hynde says she “doesn’t know” if she regrets her recent controversial remarks stating that women can be to blame for getting raped.
“They’re entitled to say whatever they want,” the songwriter and Pretenders frontwoman told the Washington Post of her critics. "Do I regret saying it? I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
In a Sunday Times interview last weekend, Hynde claimed that she took responsibility for being sexually assaulted by a motorcycle gang at age 21 (“If you play with fire you get burnt”) and that women who dress provocatively are “enticing” rapists. “If I’m walking around in my underwear and I’m drunk? Who else’s fault can it be?” she said at the time.
“If you don’t want my opinion, don’t ask me for it," Hynde said yesterday. "At the moment, we’re in one of the worst humanitarian crises in our lifetime,” she continued, referring to the migrant crisis in Europe and referencing the instantly-iconic image of a dead Syrian toddler on a Turkish beach. “We’re talking about millions of displaced persons and people whose families have been destroyed and we’re talking about comments that I allegedly made about girls in their underwear.”
“Most people aren’t as stupid as me,” Hynde said, when asked about her own assault. "I wouldn’t expect most people to do some of the stuff I did. But then again, most people don’t get to be a rock star, either. We have to walk the plank. I don’t think that’s a sign of intelligence, I don’t know what it is a sign of. I’m not saying I was asking for it. It wasn’t the same as walking down a street in the middle of a nice evening and somebody dragging you into a bush with a knife in your throat.”
"I’m not a philosopher,” she concluded. "I’m just a rock singer. And now a leading authority on rape.”
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