An old video of Drake appearing to kiss and fondle a 17-year-old girl has resurfaced on Twitter.
In the video, posted by Twitter user @thespookgod, Drake stands with a young woman onstage. After caressing and kissing her for several seconds, he asks how old she is.
When the girl says she is 17, Drake throws his head back in what appears to be mock shame as many people in the audience erupt in applause and cheers.
"I can’t go to jail yet, man!" he laughs. "Why do you look like that? You thick. Look at all this...Well, look, I had fun. I don't know whether I should feel guilty or not, but I had fun. I like the way your breasts feel against my chest. I just want to thank you."
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Before sending her offstage, he kisses her several more times.
drake kisses underage girl, learns she’s underage, then kisses her again but this time feels her breasts pic.twitter.com/oLkxZccHiS
— SPOOK GOD ALLAH (@thespookgod) January 4, 2019
According to The Sun, the video is from 2010, when Drake would have been about 24, and filmed in Colorado, where the age of consent is 17. Refinery29 has contacted Drake’s representatives for comment.
On social media, many drew a link between Drake and R. Kelly, the subject of Surviving R. Kelly, a groundbreaking docuseries that lays out decades of accusations of sexual abuse against the R&B singer. It is also drawing attention to a well-established culture in music that has long allowed older men to prey on young girls and, perhaps until now, has rendered it immune to the #MeToo movement.
Drake was romantically linked with 18-year-old model Bella Harris, whom he had also been photographed with when she was just 16, though both Harris and Drake denied the dating rumors.
The 2010 video also helps to color in a picture of Drake that is at striking odds with the sensitive guy from Degrassi persona he built up at the start of his career (though we suspect Drake has been telling us who he is for awhile now). Earlier this week, Drake teased a collaboration with Chris Brown on Instagram — Brown has been accused of abuse by multiple women and faced charges against two of his exes, Rihanna and Karrueche Tran.
If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call theRAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).