Last Sunday, model and actress Ruby Rose began posting a series of harsh accusations against singer Katy Perry on the Threads platform. Rose, 40, known for her roles in series like Orange is the new black, accused the 41-year-old Roar singer of sexually assaulting her in a bar in Melbourne, Australia, more than 15 years ago, in the summer of 2010. Now, the city police have announced that they are investigating the case.
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Although the names of the two involved are not given, in a statement released by the authorities, detectives from the Melbourne sexual crimes investigation office explained that they are conducting “an investigation into a sexual harassment that occurred in Melbourne in 2010.” “The police have been informed of an incident that occurred at a licensed venue in the city center,” they state. “As the investigation is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment beyond this point.”
Rose’s Threads post no longer exists, but in it, the actress wrote: “Katy Perry sexually assaulted me at the Spice Market nightclub in Melbourne. Nobody gives a damn about what she thinks.” In her accusation, Rose wrote: “Perry saw me ‘resting’ on my best friend’s lap to avoid her, she bent down, pulled her panties to the side and rubbed her disgusting vagina on my face until my eyes popped open and I vomited on her.”
The actress said the episode she reported happened when she was just over 20 years old, and that it had taken her “almost two decades to make it public”: “Although I am grateful to have endured long enough to find my voice, this only shows the enormous impact that trauma and sexual assault have.”
Perry, who spent the weekend at the Coachella festival with her new partner, former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is trying to remain silent. In response, she posted one of her songs on her Instagram stories, By the Grace of God, from her 2013 album Prism, along with a message to her more than 200 million followers that said “I love you.” One of the lines from that song, inspired by a breakup, says “Now I must rise/The truth always sets you free.”
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The former manager of the bar at the time told the local press, in the Herald Sun, that the Spice Market was very difficult to control in terms of security back then, but that he was there and if there was an incident, he never knew about it. This happened in August 2010, when both arrived together at the bar, now closed, along with Perry’s makeup artist and “a guy friend of Ruby’s,” he said. “It was a security nightmare because there were 600 people there and Katy kept dancing with everyone in the middle of the dance floor.” Both were in the VIP area of the venue, he recalls, having some drinks with their friends. He stated that both were “drunk, but not completely blind from alcohol.” When they left, they did so discreetly through the back door, together, in the same car.
On Monday, Perry’s team decided to release a statement on the matter. “The accusations that Ruby Rose is spreading on social media about Katy Perry are not only categorically false but are dangerous and reckless lies. Rose has a well-documented history of making serious public accusations on social media against various people, accusations that have been repeatedly denied by those involved.” Among these, it referred to the fight they had in 2017, when Rose criticized Perry on Twitter for her viral song Swish Swish. “With everything going on in the world, going from reinventing yourself as a political activist to abandoning it and sinking so low is a shame,” she said then.
The details of the statement released by the police this Wednesday match those of the two celebrities, and the Australian local press, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, has taken it for granted that the investigation is indeed about the case. Furthermore, Rose herself confirmed to that newspaper that she had taken the matter to the police, and therefore could no longer speak publicly “about the case or the individuals involved.” She also explained that her intention was to “move forward and begin the healing process.”
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