It’s unclear why, but TMZ decided to ask Dennis Graham aka Drake’s dad aka Champagne Grandpapi how he feels about the #MeToo movement and the recent allegations leveled against actor Jamie Foxx.
The answer is beyond problematic and [insert sigh], as Graham suggests the abuse women endure happens because they put themselves in questionable situations.
“Jamie is my brother and I really can’t comment on what happened 16 years ago,” he said. “But there is something I want to say to these young ladies that allow themselves to go and be in a man’s room or whatever. Stop going to these hotels.”
This is when it gets really bad. Graham brings up Bill Cosby, a convicted rapist, casually, as if the dozens of women Cosby is accused of drugging and molesting are to blame for their own assault. “Same with Bill Cosby,” he said. “Stop going to their rooms.”
“Take your ass home. Don't go into a man's room,” Graham continued to scold under his Niagra Falls of a mustache.
While we shouldn’t expect celebrities, or their fathers, to be well versed on the nuances of rape culture and consent, victim blaming is one of the worst vestiges of misogyny. When it comes to consent, as Amber Rose once said, “I can be lying butt naked next to a dude a still say no.”
This language is extremely harmful in Cosby’s case. Andrea Constand, the woman whose case will possibly get Cosby sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, went to the comedian’s home because she considered him a mentor and wanted career advice. As long as ideas like Graham’s continue to be mainstream, it will be hard for women like Constand to be awarded legal justice in sexual assault cases, especially when it comes to cases involving women of color.
Graham doesn’t seem to take any of this into account. When TMZ presses, asking if there are two sides to blame, he vehemently says no. “No there’s not two sides to blame. You take your ass home,” he said. “Don’t go where you might think a man is going to have anything to do with raping you or anything else.”
Well you heard him ladies. With advice like that, I suppose women should just resign themselves to never going to college, attending parties, working in a restaurant or a shoe store, taking an uber, or ever leaving their house.
