Was Reebok Right To Fire Rick Ross Over Rape Lyric?

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Musicians aren’t typically held to the same standards as other spokesmen when they’re chosen to represent a product. It sort of comes with the territory that they’ll say and do some wild things now and again, but that doesn’t mean there’s not still a line. That’s a hard lesson Rick Ross found out this week when Reebok fired him from his endorsement contract because of lyrics many interpreted as condoning rape.

The song in question is the Rocko jam “U.O.E.N.O.”. Ross contributes a verse, and in it, he says the following…

"Put molly all in her champagneshe ain’t even know itI took her home and I enjoyed thatshe ain’t even know it"

Molly is a street name for MDMA. Thus, many fans have interpreted the lyrics to be describing a date rape. If you take it from Ross, that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s taken to Twitter several times to overtly denounce sexual assault since the protests first started up, but apparently, it wasn’t enough to warm Reebok’s increasingly cold feet.

Here’s a portion of the company’s official statement…

"While we do not believe that Rick Ross condones sexual assault, we are very disappointed he has yet to display an understanding of the seriousness of this issue or an appropriate level of remorse.”

Ross has had more than his share of problems over the years, but whether or not this situation should have been one of them depends on who you ask. There are some who think this lyric was blown entirely out of proportion, while there are others who think Ross needed to go because of his comment.

What do you think? Should Reebok have fired Ross? Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll below…

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Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.