14 DAY TRIAL // Robin Thicke had a spectacular 2013, but 2014 proved to be just the opposite, as he and Pharrell Williams were accused of ripping off Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” to create the song that ruled the charts throughout the previous year (and which made them even richer), “Blurred Lines.”
After a lengthy and highly mediated case, a judge ruled in favor of the Gaye family: indeed, Pharell and Thicke had copied Gaye’s song to an almost shameless extent. As the two are preparing to appeal the decision, their deposition tapes have emerged online.
Robin Thicke spent 2013 high and drunk
Needless to say, they don’t cast the two singers in a favorable light. The Hollywood Reporter, the media outlet that obtained the tapes and published them, says that the deposition tapes are proof of “what it’s like for artists to be under fire, forced to tell the truth with nowhere to hide.”
Pharrell, for instance, is shown as lacking in the musical theory department, while admitting that, though he never set out to steal from Gaye, in retrospect, he understood that he did.
Thicke’s defense during the lawsuit was that, if there was any stealing done, he wasn’t in on it because he was high on Vicodin and drunk the entire time. As for claims he had made in an older interview that he was fully involved in the songwriting process and that he had set out to create a song with a “Marvin Gaye feel” to it, he says that he was making up stuff so he could make himself look better.
In his deposition, Thicke admits he will say whatever it takes to sell records. At the same time, he disowns all the claims he made throughout 2013, saying he was high and drunk all the time, including on his Oprah interview (see the last video embedded below).
He doesn’t consider himself “an honest person,” he’s quick to answer: he couldn’t, seeing how he lied through his teeth all through 2013, just so he could make more money from his hit song.
Avoiding the pay-off
Thicke and Pharrell made a lot of money off “Blurred Lines,” but they weren’t the only ones to profit from it: rapper T.I., who is listed as collaborator, also banked on it, as also did the record label releasing the song.
However, now it’s just Thicke and Pharrell who have to pay up for the “mistake” of coming up with a song that is too similar to Gaye’s 1977 hit. As per the court’s decision from earlier this year, the Gaye family will be awarded $7.4 million (€6.7 million) in damages, payable by these two.
They’re appealing the decision in the hope of overturning it.