It's been a year since "Blurred Lines" was the frontrunner for the 2013 Song of the Summer, but Pharrell Williams is still fielding questions about its alleged misogyny. The singer says the controversial line "I know you want it," which had some detractors accusing Robin Thicke and company of crafting a "rapey" song, does not insinuate anything that buying a car wouldn't.
"I don’t know where [a man] forcing himself and a woman’s right to say no was ever addressed in that song," Williams said during an interview with British public-service broadcaster Channel 4. "Is it sexually suggestive when a car salesman says to a person who’s trying to buy a car, ‘I know you want it'?"
The interviewer, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, pushed back against the comparison, asserting that the phrase is often used in a "sexual context."
"Okay, cool," Williams responded. "But does that make it off-limits for me to use in a song, especially when the overarching context is that there are good women who also have bad thoughts? If a good woman can have sexual thoughts, is it wrong for a man to have a correct guess that a woman might want something?"
Williams' comments mirror Thicke's reaction to the criticism, but a stranger part of the interview came when Williams said he isn't a feminist, no matter how much he "love[s] women."
"I’ve been asked, am I a feminist? I don’t think it’s possible for me to be that. I’m a man," Williams said. "It makes sense up until a certain point. But what I do is -- I do support feminists. I do think there’s injustices. There are inequalities that need to be addressed."
Watch the full interview below.
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