Pretenders lead singer Chrissie Hynde is being criticized by rape victim support groups for saying that women can sometimes be responsible for being attacked.
During an interview to promote her upcoming autobiography "Reckless: My Life as a Pretender," the 63-year-old Hyde told
The Sunday Times of London about a sexual assault she encountered in her native Ohio when she was 21.
Hynde sais she was forced to perform sexual acts on members of a motorcycle gang who had promised to take her to a party.
"Technically speaking, however you want to look at it, this was all my doing and I take full responsibility," said Hyde, who said she was high on drugs when the incident happened.
"You know if you don't want to entice a rapist, don't wear high heels so you can't run from him," Hynde said. "If I'm walking around in my underwear and I'm drunk. Who else's fault can it be?"
On the other hand, she said, "If I'm walking around and I'm very modestly dressed and I'm keeping to myself and someone attacks me, then I'd say that's his fault. But if I'm being very lairy and putting it about and being provocative, then you are enticing someone who's already unhinged – don't do that. Come on! That's just common sense."
Whether Hynde was aware she would catch flack isn't clear. She ended the statement with, "I don't think I am saying anything controversial, am I?"
She was.
Twitter users weren't happy, and neither was Lucy Hastings, director of the U.K. group Victim Support.
"Victims of sexual violence should never feel or be made to feel that they were responsible for the appalling crime they suffered – regardless of circumstances or factors which may have made them particularly vulnerable," she told the
BBC.
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