Chrissie Hynde: Women should dress modestly or expect to 'entice a rapist'

In a new memoir Chrissie Hynde reveals she was sexually assaulted by a motorcycle gang in Ohio in the early 1970s. Photo / Getty Images

Pretenders lead singer claims sexual assault in the 1970s was her own ‘fault’ because of the way she was dressed.

Women who walk around drunk and provocatively dressed should expect to be sexually assaulted, Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of the Pretenders, has suggested.

The former chart topper claimed in a Sunday newspaper interview that scantily clad women were likely to "entice a rapist" and that it is their "fault" if they are attacked.

She discloses in a new memoir how she was abducted and sexually assaulted by a motorcycle gang in Ohio in the early 1970s - but concludes it was "all my doing" because of the way she was dressed and the fact that she was under the influence of drugs.

She also claimed that pop stars who call themselves feminists but use their sex appeal to sell records were effectively just "prostitutes".

Charities said her remarks highlighted how victims of sexual assault wrongly blame themselves for their ordeals.

Her comments came in an interview with The Sunday Times, which published extracts from her autobiography entitled Reckless.

The book details an incident when she was 21 when she was picked up by a motorcycle gang who promised to take her to a party but instead took her to an empty house and sexually assaulted her.

But she said: "If I'm walking around in my underwear and I'm drunk? Who else's fault can it be? - Er, the guy who attacks you?

"Oh, come on! That's just silly.

"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."

She added: "You know, if you don't want to entice a rapist, don't wear high heels so you can't run from him. If you're wearing something that says 'Come and ---- me', you'd better be good on your feet I don't think I'm saying anything controversial am I?"

She went on to argue that many women who describe themselves as feminists were anything but in practice.

Asked whom she meant, she said: "Women who sell what their product is by using sex - that's prostitution.

"A pop star who's walking around, parading themselves as a porn star and saying they're feminists.

"They're prostitutes.

"I'm not making a value judgment on prostitutes, but just say what you are."

- The Telegraph