Chrissie Hynde has expounded upon her controversial comments about rape (“If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned”) in a new interview with The Washington Post about her soon-to-be-released memoir, Reckless. The Runaways’ Jackie Fuchs, who has been forthcoming about her own chronicle of sexual assault, recently said Hynde was sending a “dangerous message,” but the Pretenders frontwoman doesn’t seem all that concerned about the backlash.
“They’re entitled to say whatever they want,” Hynde said on Thursday, in what has been billed as her first phone interview since her initial statements to The Sunday Times. “Do I regret saying it? I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.”
She continued, “At the moment, we’re in one of the worst humanitarian crises in our lifetime. You see that picture of a Turkish policeman carrying the body of a 3-year-old boy who got washed up on the shore. These are the heartbreaking images we have and 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.”
Later on in the conversation, Hynde restated her original comments. “I would say there was an element of sexual assault,” She explained of an incident in her new memoir. “But frankly, if you go into the club house of the world’s most notorious bikers, it’s not going to be for a Bible reading.”
Read Hynde’s full interview over at The Washington Post.
