Chrissie Hynde: Assault by bikers ‘the way it was’

In the book, the singer/songwriter recounts her childhood in Akron, Ohio, the development of her passion for rock “n” roll in the 1960s, her experiences at Kent State University at the time of the infamous 1970 shootings of student protesters, her involvement in the London punk scene during the ’70s and her early years with The Pretenders, culminating in the tragic, drug-related deaths of guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon. I can see every woman out there who wanted to be a singer.

And it was like that when Christine Ellen Hynde was born in 1951, the second child of a secretary and a phone company worker.

She told her parents she was going to a cottage in Port Carling, Ont., but instead flew with a few friends from Cleveland to Toronto, exploring southwestern Ontario with only their outstretched thumbs and the kindness of motorists to guide them.

Chrissie Hynde stands by the controversial rape comments she made in an interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times magazine, in which she said victims “have to take responsibility”, and not only has she not been paying attention to the uproar, but she also doesn’t care if you don’t agree with her.

Hynde partly blames herself for the incident, and has come under fire for saying so.

In an interview to air on this week’s Sunday Morning on CBS, Chrissie said: “If you hung out with those guys, that’s what happened”. “That’s the way it was”. Smith asked. “I was too off my head to really take responsibility”.

It was, she writes, “the only time in (her) life that a guy would make a decision” on her behalf.

“Not really. But I should’ve”. But we weren’t thinking that way.

“We have been simply making an attempt to attain pot and see bands”, she explains. That’s all we wanted to do.

“Were the bikers part of the reason that you thought you needed to get out?” “That is the best way it was”, she says. You can’t f– about with people, especially people who wear “I Heart Rape” and “On Your Knees” badges…

“With a number of these guys, when you become involved with them, you do not actually get out”, she says.

“And you could’ve been headed down that path?”