Pharrell Williams is a man at peace. He’s got a hit album and a career-defining mega-single with he’s, yes, happily married and even his goofy hats are a meme that just won’t quit.
But after two decades of cranking out hits, he knows better than to rest on his laurels and put it on coast. Which is why in a new GQ profile Skateboard P has so much on his mind, including revealing who our next president will be.
We skimmed over the article to find the 8 best moments of pure Pharrellitude, in no particular order:
1. Bad News, Tea Party: Your Daughters Love To Twerk
After all those n-word jokes in 2014, Pharrell says “good luck” to the ultra-conservative GOP offshoot party. “They’re all trying to learn how to do the Dougie. Please. While their daughters are all twerking,” he said. “Trust me: Miley tells me all the time: All those little girls, all those girls with their Republican daddies, they’re twerkin’ somewhere listening to Jay Z and Beyoncé and doin’ the ‘Happy’ dance. And that’s black.”
2. Regrets? He’s Had A Few, But Trucker Hats Aren’t One
“No,” Williams said when asked if he regrets his former headgear. “I always did the same thing. I’ve dressed like I make my music. ‘No one’s doing that: I’m gonna go do that.’ With the trucker hat, it was just a different time. And it was just N.E.R.D. time for me, you know? And that’s what we represented — like, the anti-media image. We represented the real: black kids that skated.”
3. Hillary’s Gonna Win, Guaranteed
“Let me tell you why Hillary’s going to win,” Pharrell said of former Secretary of State and presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “Everywhere you go in this country, you have red and blue. You got the Democrats; you got the Republicans. You got the Bloods; you got the Crips. Everything is red and blue in this country.
“You know what else is red and blue? Blood. Blood is blue in your body until air hits it, and then it turns red. That means there’s unity. There’s gonna be unity … No matter how staunch of a supporter you are of no-abortion, whatever you are: You’re a woman, and there’s no way in the world you’re going to vote for somebody that’s going to try to tell you what to do with your body.
4. A $16,500 Bicycle, For Real?
A Pharrell-designed bike is going for the price of a decent, used Honda Accord. Why? Because it’s wrapped in leather. “Someone can afford it,” Williams said. “Not for the world. But I have affordable products. You have to connect with people.”
5. The G I R L Cover Controversy Is Your Problem, Not His
“It’s insecurity,” he said over the flack from some people who complained that his album cover
was not diverse enough. “If you love who you are … That’s why I wrote ‘Marilyn Monroe,’ man: That which makes you different is what makes you special. You don’t gotta be waif, white, and thin to be beautiful. You can be anything that you want to be, and what I chose to do is put my friends on the cover.
The girl that was closest next to me is black, but they didn’t know that, so they jumped the gun. And it wasn’t all black women. There were a lot of black women that were really angry at some of those girls, but some of those girls are the ones that instantly get mad when they don’t see somebody that’s dark. And it’s like: ‘Yo, you don’t need nobody to represent you. You represent you. You represent the best version of who you could be.'”
6. Living With Mom And Dad
He wasn’t always a Billionaire Boys Club president. Back in Virginia before he was famous Pharrell used some of his first big checks to buy his parents a house, then he moved in with them. “I always like the idea that Michael Jackson lived with his parents for so long. I knew I would never be anything like him, so it was always cool to just sort of emulate the king,” he said.
But then it was time to go. “[I moved out] when I finally got tired of sneaking girls in. And it was more than one girl, you know, coming to hang out with me. So it was kind of like — you know, I didn’t want to do that to my mom.”
7. He’s A Terrible Driver
During the interview, the writer fears for his life when Pharrell drives on the wrong side of the road and makes a hard left in front of a taxi in his Rolls-Royce Phantom.
8. How He Really Felt About Losing The Oscar
“Trust me: when they read the results, my face was … frozen,” he joked about the Disney soundtrack song that beat him. “But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to … let it go.”
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