The world is not perfect. Neither is the justice system in this country. Sometimes, guilty or innocent, people go to jail. Sometimes, guilty or innocent, people go free. What I’m looking to do here is address everyone in the latter group, guilty or innocent, and in particular you, Mr. CeeLo Green.
Now let me preface this by saying, I actually like CeeLo, the performer. I’ve never met him. I don’t know what he’s like in his personal life. I wasn’t in the room when the alleged crimes took place. I do know that Fuck You was a great song. And I appreciate his talents both as a performer and a producer. But this isn’t about CeeLo the performer, this is about the guy who was accused of drugging and raping a woman. The guy who pled it out three days ago to a relatively minor infraction that got him 45 days of community service. The guy, who by all accounts could be considered the luckiest man on earth… that guy!
See, if you’re lucky enough to walk away from a violent crime charge relatively unscathed, particularly one that is high profile like yours, there are two different paths you can take. I like to affectionately call these the OJ path and the Baretta path. The smarter path is the Baretta path, made popular by Mr. Robert Blake, TV’s Baretta. If you’ll recall, back in 2001, Blake was accused of the murder of his wife. Four years later when the trial finally concluded, Blake was found not guilty. Now if you’ve ever seen a Robert Blake interview, you’d see that the guy is a certified nutcase. But do you know what he did after he was found not guilty? Yeah, neither do I. Nobody does, because Robert Blake had the good sense to check the fuck out! No one hears from Robert Blake. Robert Blake does not call attention to himself. There was a small hiccup a couple years back where he had some tax problems and once that was over. Boom, he’s a ghost.
To anyone else ever accused of a violent crime, that is how you do! When the foreman says “not guilty,” you shake your lawyers hand, you walk out the front door of the courtroom happy for your freedom, and then you’re a phantom. The ghost who walks. GONE. Others who have followed this path include Casey Anthony! Remember her, trial of the century a couple years ago? Not guilty, and she’s gone. That’s how you do it. Even if you’re famous, you can still follow the the Baretta path. Remember when Ben Roethlisberger was accused of rape a couple years back? I’m sure he does. But he never mentions it. Ben goes to work, keeps his nose clean and his head down. What about Ray Lewis? Another perfect example. Had a good career! It can be done.
Then there’s the OJ path. The path you seem to have chosen. The path where you can’t wait to talk to the media. This is the path of idiots. Remember when OJ Simpson was acquitted and immediately started telling everyone in the press that he was going to go looking for “the real killers.” Remember how dumb he sounded, because even if OJ was innocent, he certainly wasn’t known for his detective skills? Remember how OJ looked even worse over the next several years because he kept showing up on TV and doing stupid shit just to remind us that most of the world thought he got away with murder? Remember that?
CeeLo, you have just made OJ look like a fucking genius.
The wrong thing to do, when you’ve just walked away from a rape charge, even if you know in your heart that you’re innocent, is to go on Twitter anytime in the next… lets say 6 months or so. Really, don’t go on Twitter to apologize. Don’t go on Twitter to promote your new single. Don’t tweet a pic of your breakfast. Really, just don’t go on. Be a phantom, remember? And for HOVA’s sake, if you’re going to go on Twitter, what on earth would possess you to get into an argument where you claim it isn’t rape if the victim is asleep? Seriously… I need to know this. I mean, I get the “her word against mine. I swear she said yes” argument. I get the “I’m sorry, I was fucked up too. We were high, we both made some bad decisions” argument. Hell, you could have even gone with the “look at the way the slut was dressed, she was asking for it” argument and it would have sounded more logical than what you did. But not you! No, you went with:
“If someone is passed out they’re not even WITH you consciously,” he said, adding, “People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!”
Wow… Seeing as how you plead no contest to the fact that you drugged her, that’s pretty much a confession of guilt, you idiot.
Like, if that happened in a movie or book, no one would believe it. That’s the worst dialogue ever. We’re talking Donald Sterling logic. We’re right up there with Jerry Sandusky’s “no, I didn’t have sex with ALL the underaged boys” logic.
So really, like OJ, I figure we haven’t seen the last of Mr. Green. So to anyone else, who ever gets in this situation. Don’t be like CeeLo. Be like Beretta. Keep your eye on the sparrow. And you can take that to the bank.
Well the strange thing is that, the piece of shit known as El Duce, lead singer of the Mentors also said that “We don’t consider it rape if she’s passed out”. Of course he said that without being alleged or convicted so there is that.
I agree with your general advice on disappearing. But I’m not sure that Cee-Lo was actually saying what people are saying he was saying, though. The exact tweet was “if someone passes out then they’re not even WITH you consciously! So WITH implies consent”. I don’t really know exactly how to parse that. But I have trouble interpreting that as him saying “If they’re not conscious, you don’t need consent”. If the second sentence had been “So you don’t need consent” or “So breathing implies consent” or “So NOT WITH implies consent”, I’d be onboard. But, as it is, what he actually said seems nonsensical. Now, I’m with you on the idea that he probably shouldn’t be on Twitter talking rape-related nonsense, but I think that attempts to form this nonsense into sense are putting words into his mouth. It would be nice to actually see the whole conversation, though.
Keith: Only he continued to argue with them. He went on to say that “when people are raped, they remember it.” and make a metaphor for “braking(sic) and entering” to try and explain the lack of preponderance of evidence.
So either he doesn’t know that what he’s saying is a textbook definition of rape, or he means something completely different than what he was saying. Either way, his mistake is obviously going on twitter at all instead just going away. Spend some time in the Bahamas, cut a new album… etc…
He knows he has a habit of saying stuff that gets him in trouble accidentally, like when he basically said the best way of describing Adam Levine was “Jew.” So especially in a case like this, you want to stay as far away from making a public statement as possible.
The rumor is, that Casey Anthony is pregnant with twins and has a deal for a reality show about it. This rumor also may have started with the weekly world news, but, if that’s real? It’s like, the polar opposite of the ‘Baretta’ approach. Wtf.
Didn’t he write a song about necrophilia?
I think that they have that supervillain thing going. Deep down, they want you to know they did it. Hell, OJ wrote a book!
Brian: the Casey Anthony thing isn’t true. That was a story by a satire site (National Report) and the internet is dumb so it got picked up.
The problem is it revealed the ire of the people. She’s a young woman. Innocent (legally. Whether she did it or not) and pretty. Chances are, sooner or later she’s going to have another kid. People need to get over that idea and accept it.
I honestly can’t believe she can’t get a book deal off the ground.
I’m sure she could if she wanted one. But I suspect she’s doing just what I said, following the Baretta path.
She’s pursued one, but nobody has taken her up on it yet. Possibly just to let the dust settle.
I’ve seen speculation she was pursuing one but never anything reputable. She’s certainly in the position to get more press than she does if she wanted it.