It’s not exactly news at this point that the rapper known as Tyga is, as a rather self-explanatory headline in The Daily Beast put it yesterday, “a Creepy Predator Who Is Attracted to Underage Girls.”
As the Daily Beast’s Marlow Stern points out, the rapper famously started dating Kylie Jenner when she was 17 — officially “jailbait” in the state of California, where she lives — and defended the, er, romance in a song featuring one of the creepiest couplets in the history of lyrics:
They say she young, I should’ve waited
She a big girl, dog, when she stimulated.
This star-crossed romance got even skeezier last month, with tabloids reporting that while Tyga was dating Jenner he was also creeping on an even-more-underage girl online — a 14-year-old “Instagram model.”
In a press conference on Monday, with attorney Gloria Allred by her side, the girl in question — identifying herself as Molly O’Malia.– told her side of the story, saying that Tyga had approached her online, sending her messages on Instagram and trying to convince her to meet in person.
If her story is true, Stern notes, it
shows that Tyga is a predator with considerable means and influence who targets underage girls, just as he did with a teenage Kylie Jenner. And the public—and tabloid media—shouldn’t laugh off this despicable behavior any longer. It’s this lack of seriousness and accountability that’s allowed a demon like R. Kelly to continue to flourish, despite the countless young girls he’s left violated and forgotten.
Unfortunately, as the mention of the henious R. Kelly reminds us, Tyga is hardly the first predatory pop star. And in most cases, the media has been content to trivialize the issue or simply look the other way.
Sure, rocker Jerry Lee Lewis famously faced a backlash after journalists discovered that he had married a 13-year-old girl who also happened to be his first cousin once removed.
But Elvis Presley somehow managed to avoid this sort of scandal even while he was actively pursuing Priscilla Beaulieu, whom he met when she was only 14. The two eventually married in 1967 after what Biography.com euphemistically describes as a “nearly eight-year courtship.” According to assorted biographers, Elvis was positively obsessed with girls in their early teens. The official story, for what it’s worth, is that the singer didn’t actually have sex with any of them, preferring pillow fights and girly gossip.
Elvis wasn’t the first or the last pop star obsessed with underage girls; most had a lot more than pillow fights in mind. In a spoken-word section of the 1977 Kiss song “Christine Sixteen,” Gene Simmons declares
I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you comin’ out of school that day, that day I knew, I knew I got to have ya. I got to have ya!
But it hasn’t been just rock ‘n’ roll sleazebags like Simmons who have advertised their interest in underage girls. The Knack’s “My Sharona” was about a real-life 17-year-old who was dating one of the band members; the group returned to the topic of underage girls in another song,“That’s What The Little Girls Do,” which laments how these “little girls” allegedly torment older men, breaking both their egos and their hearts. Oh, and the album that followed the massive hit Get The Knack was titled “But the Little Girls Understand.”
The list goes on and on. There’s Foreigner’s “Seventeen.” There’s “Young Girl,” by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. There’s Donovan’s “Mellow Yellow,” a surrealistic ode to yellow vibrators — and 14-year-old girls.
And then there’s Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. He didn’t write musical love letters to 14-year-olds. No, he just sent roadies to bring them to him, no questions asked. Or at least he did on one infamous occasion in 1972. As Cracked describes the incident, Page was so taken by 14-year-old groupie Lori Maddox, whom he’d spotted in a nightclub, that he
sent roadie Richard Cole to Maddox’s table with the message, “Jimmy told me that he’s going to have you whether you like it or not.” The roadie then grabbed her and chucked her in the back of a limo, saying, “You fucking move and I’ll fucking have your head.”
Page apparently did his best to keep the three-year “romance” that followed out of the press — and Maddox herself largely confined to his hotel room.
But the story has been out for decades now, and no one seems to give a shit about it. Page is still treated as a rock god, his creepy years-long exploitation of the extremely underaged Maddox seen as little more than a colorful example of seventies rock excess.
Some might say that it’s unfair to put Tyga’s skeezy but failed online seduction of a high school junior in the same category as, say, Page’s exploitation of Maddox. He didn’t kidnap her; they never even met in person.
Indeed, two other Daily Beast writers, Lizzie Crocker and Tim Teeman, sniff that
[i]n the annals of Allred cases defending pretty girls as victims of lurid celebrity scandals, this particular scandal was hardly a scandal at all before Allred entered the fray. …
it was not clear what made O’Malia … a victim in this case, until she had been transformed into one by Allred.
But that’s not really the point. It’s a good thing that Tyga’s pursuit of a 14-year-old is a scandal (and it definitely was one, albeit a somewhat smaller one, even before Allred got involved).
Pop stars’ exploitation of their young female fans used to be such a “normal” and expected thing in the music business that some of the rock ‘n’ roll predators not only wrote songs about it, but wrote songs in which they — shades of Humbert Humbert — made themselves out to be the victims.
Today, Tyga is getting called out on Twitter and in the tabloids for his predatory behavior. That’s a good thing.
I only hope that Jimmy Page and R. Kelly and all those other musicians who have happily exploited underage fans will eventually be held to the same standard.
@falconer, yeah, this was fairly recent. After Fowley died, Jackie went public with what had happened to her. Joan and Cherie Curry had been in the room while she was drugged and raped. Then Joan, for some reason, decided to deny that it was a rape. Guilt? Unable to admit she had done something wrong by not interfering? I have no idea.
No one has the right to tell you you were a ‘victim’. That is true.
However, the key thing is not how you felt about the situation. It’s the motives of the men that’s at the crux of it. You may have just been seeking affection from someone not as douchey as your peers, but yes, those men were predators, looking to capitalize on your apparent lack of experience. Kylie Jenner may not be a victim, but Tyga is a predator, as his later activities demonstrate.
Joan Jett joined Chrissie Hynde and Whoopi Goldberg in the ‘women who really should know better’ club.
“Yandere” is a term from anime fandom that means something like “alternating between loving and dangerously obsessive”. (I’d link to the TV Tropes page, but holy ableism, Batman.)
I am really quite shocked to see a woman referred to as a sex toy in these comments. Women aren’t things.
@Ellesar –
Aw fuck, what did Chrissie Hynde do? I have no heroes left anymore.
@Ellesar, thank you, I was trying to remember “Whoopie Goldberg” in relation to “said it wasn’t really rape” but for some reason I kept drawing a blank.
Chrissie Hynde said of her own sexual assault that she should have known better, pretty much. She describes some bikers as wearing patches that read “I <3 Rape" and how she did not take that at face value. She said she was naive, which she probably was. Anyway, here’s an article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/16/chrissie-hynde-clarifies-comments-on
^This
And the “untouched beauty” crap is also about power.
@asabovesobelow ,
You know, I can understand that. I’ve got stuff from my past I try to rationalize too. I hate that she thinks it’s her fault, and that she thinks that is the logical conclusion. But I get it. There’s plenty of predators out there that tell young girls just that.
Are…are there any old-school muscians who aren’t massive shitheels? Like, any at all?
I’m glad now that the only musician who I am an actual fan* of has not had any (reported) history of such behavior.
One of the things that disturbs me about adult men who are fixated on young people as objects of sexual/’romantic’ interest is how it makes long term relationships impossible. While a short term relationship between adults can end in a variety of ways, an exploitive adult/youth one would necessarily end when the youth grows up. The predator is not interested in the adult person the victim is becoming; that might involve treating him/her as an equal. Nothin’ sexy ’bout THAT.
*Sananda Maitreya, formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby.
@CDburn
Well, I’d like to think that Ronnie James Dio was without flaws, but I doubt it.
re: Japanese age of consent – to mostly echo someone previously, the “It’s 13 in Japan!” thing is something I hear parroted a lot too, but I am also under the impression that that’s the national age and, in practice, nearly every prefecture has it at 18.
Weirwood: I might have started it, I guess… and I did so because people were talking as though it was objectively, inarguably, fucked up that there are song lyrics about 16 and 17 year olds. And I don’t think that’s right… I brought up the legalities, because those are at least objective things you can point to. Whether or not it’s morally and ethically wrong for an “adult” to “go after” teenagers is something that can be debated, and, IMO, would vary greatly depending on the specifics of the people and the situation.
When I read about what Page did; I’m like DAMN!
I knew that he messed around with underaged girls (which is icky enough) but I had NO CLUE that he actually KIDNAPPED a girl and kept her as a sex slave!
Why isn’t this guy scrutinized? The other stuff is bad but what Page did is MEGA-BAD!
Just chiming in to echo what others have said about Police and Sting. Those songs Don’t Stand So Close To Me and Every Breath You Take are not mindless skeeve. EBYT is a look inside a stalker’s mind–it’s pretty damn chilling.
What’s really scary is the fact that people hear those lyrics and think the song is about love.
I once argued online with someone who thought Lolita is a love story. (Spoiler: it’s not.) The title character is orphaned, kidnapped, and abused, and we’re told she cries every night–but her nickname is used as a synonym for “underaged girl who seduces older man.”
Unreliable narrators: what’s those?
.
P.S. Nothing wrong with Every Little Thing She Does is Magic. Anybody can feel tongue-tied around someone they’re in love with/crushing on. I think the tone is more admiring and self deprecating than self-pitying, but either way, I can relate.
Who does he think he is, Ted Nugent? 😉
I agree with the earlier-stated idea that it’s not about the youth being a victim or not, it’s the predatory nature of an adult going after a child.
Even a very independent under-18 is lacking the legal-rights and experience (read: NOT maturity, experience) to be able to defend themselves if they end up with someone who is dangerous. So though they may seek out older people as intellectual and sexual peers, in reality (and the predators know this) their situation leaves them vulnerable if someone does treat them in a way they don’t want.
That and the large amount of teens who are still coming to terms with their sexuality, selves, and are desperate for belonging to a degree that leaves them largely open for exploitation on every level means that that age group would largely benefit from protection.
Most of the time, these revelations about famous people and their art don’t bother me much, in terms of being disappointed in them, that is.
But. Mellow Yellow has always been a favorite song of mine and this bums me out a bit. I’ve never looked up the lyrics since I’ve been pretty confident in my own mind what they were; seems I was wrong. Before today, I would have sworn up and down that it was “Fontaine” and not “fourteen” so, BAH.
Brian,
The age of consent in my state is 16. When I was 16 (and I didn’t look any older) I got hit on and catcalled by much older men all the time. This stopped happening with such frequency when I looked properly adult. I experienced this as predatory. So did the majority of my friends when it happened to them. I had a few friends and acquaintances at that age involved with guys more than 2 or 3 years older. Every one of them came from abusive or neglectful backgrounds or had mental health or substance abuse issues. In other words, they were vulnerable and ill equipped to make decisions well.
Teen girls may fantasize about teachers, coaches, rock stars, movie stars etc. That doesn’t make it okay for those adults to take advantage.
Age of consent laws tend to be old and were written by adult men.
There may be a few exceptions where a 16 or 17 year old is mature enough to be with a much older man, but please don’t mansplain about how we shouldn’t be so quick to judge and bring up consent laws. I know what predatory behavior looks and sounds like because I’ve been on the receiving end of it.
There’s a reason that it’s men 90% of the time who bring up the fact that some places have age of consent below 18.
@ Mike
To be totally fair, Lennon & McCartney were only about 20 themselves when they wrote that, so romantic inclination towards a 17 year old doesn’t really set off my creepdar. That said, Lennon was a domestic abuser, but I haven’t heard anything problematic about McCartney.
@Kat:
No, I didn’t actually say that to her; I was paraphrasing. It came out as a lot harsher than it really was, because arguing with her was like arguing with a nastier, more dense version of JudgyBitch, and the memory of it started to get my dander up all over again, and my rhetoric got heated. Sorry about that. My actual comments to her were a lot milder. Basically I was pointing out the same frustrations with the music business as you, and questioning Buell’s defense of the status quo with regard to the groupie-rock star relationship.
The original reviewer said she was a musician in the New York scene and had witnessed a lot of sucky, degrading things happening to female groupies. She saw terrible behavior by male musicians, girls with low self-esteem, girls who were taken advantage of, drugged, and trampled on, all in exchange for proximity to talent. The book made her sad for that reason. She wished that more women felt inspired to participate in music as equals, not as conquests, which I fully agree with. I don’t see why that’s an unreasonable position to take, or what’s anti-feminist about that.
The problem I had with Buell is that she was claiming that the label “groupie” is inaccurate, that it should be considered an equal relationship because groupies are muses and goddesses (her term) who inspire lust, which in turn inspires songs and creative output. Keep in mind that she herself was making this argument from a position of relative privilege, having gotten close enough to several major rock stars to form long term relationships with them. She’s claimed elsewhere that a few songs have been written about her, including Todd Rundgren’s “Can We Just Be Friends” and The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” (according to her Prince was singing “Bebe, you’re much too fast”, which seems a little dubious, but okay).
The average groupie’s experience is far less equal, and *that* is what I was arguing. I wasn’t in any way arguing that groupies are sluts, or don’t deserve respect. The reality is that there is often a power discrepancy between older musician/young groupie, and unfortunately, male musicians don’t always regard groupies as equals or treat them respectfully. Some are straight-up callous and predatory, and that attitude trickles over into their songs. It goes with the territory, and it sucks. I felt it was disingenuous of Buell to try to paper over that imbalance and pretend it doesn’t exist, just because her experience was different. My other point was that “inspiring lust” is one degree removed from inspiring the music, so why not encourage young girls to eliminate the middleman and write/play some music of their own?
I don’t have any problem with women wanting to sleep with musicians – hey, talent is incredibly attractive and I’ve felt the same urge on a few occasions – but when people like Bebe claim that it’s empowering for underage girls to put themselves in situations they don’t understand that may endanger their well-being just for the sake of getting close to fame, well, that’s a problem, and I felt like I needed to say something, as well as stop her from flaming all over this poor person’s book review. It wasn’t just me. She was mercilessly bullying and attacking anyone and everyone who disagreed, even mildly. It reminded me of the Honey Badgers.
Frankly, I’m a little surprised that you’re defending her and accusing me of being retrograde. That seems backwards.
Nowhere did I ever say that. Look, I’m a friend (even if I’m not one of the WHTM regulars). Please put down the troll stick.
I think Canada does a decent job with age of consent laws; the general age of consent for sexual activity is 16, but it contains anti-exploitation protections for persons still under 18, for things like relationships with someone in a position of power/trust/authority, pornography, and prostitution. It also takes into consideration the “nature of the relationship” for subjectively predatory-but-not-otherwise-illegal situations. I can be okay with acknowledging 16 and 17 year-olds as soon-to-be adults with sexual agency, but they’re still very vulnerable and deserve adequate protection.
The worst Beatles song by far is “Run for your Life” and I cannot understand why it still gets airplay on the “Breakfast with the Beatles” radio show.
@buttercup
I agree with you for the most part. I’ve said it for years: being a muse is a lousy job. Having your personality serve as the creative grist for somebody else’s mill rarely works out well. I’ve been there, I did serve as inspiration for a few, when I was young and active (and mis-diagnoised and unmedicated) and in the long run, it doesn’t mean much. You wind up living up to some other person’s idealized version of you.
Also, if someone writes a book or a song about you, you don’t get royalties!