This week rapper T.I. and his wife, Tameka "Tiny" Harris, were accused of sex trafficking and forcing women to take drugs.

These accusations stemmed from a social media post from Tiny's former friend, Sabrina Paterson. Paterson alleged that T.I. pulled out a gun and put it to her head. Soon after Paterson's claims made their way to the world, multiple stories of T.I. and Tiny drugging and coercing women to engage in sexual acts started to surface.

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Camila MorroneLeonardo DiCaprio and Camila Morrone out and about, New York, USA - 15 May 2018

Photo by: John Sheene/Ace Pictures/Shutterstock

There's not really a lot of confusion about why Leonardo DiCaprio keeps ending up with beautiful younger women.

Famous, wealthy man-children have been leveraging their status and power to pursue young women since wealth and fame became concepts. It's almost more uncommon for a man in that position to date someone age appropriate. In the past, however, it was easy to imagine that many of the young women DiCaprio was seen with might have been nursing girlhood crushes connected to his heartthrob status as the young male lead in Titanic (1997).

The problem with that theory as it relates to Camila Morrone is that she was born in 1997, six months before Titanic (1997) premiered. So unless she was a particularly advanced infant, it's unlikely that she was aware of DiCaprio's breakout role. Perhaps, then, she saw his 2004 performance as Howard Hughes in The Aviator and was left indelibly marked by the sense that DiCaprio was a man who could date young aspiring actresses well into middle age—and clearly Leo is just so method that he was unable to drop that part of the character.

Whatever her early impressions of him, now that she is nearly half his age, she feels confident that she has matured enough to be with a man so stunted that he wants to keep dating beautiful women who were children for most of his career. She even feels that their relationship is worth defending. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Morrone, 22, responded to critics of the 23-year age gap between herself and DiCaprio, saying, "There's so many relationships in Hollywood—and in the history of the world—where people have large age gaps… I just think anyone should be able to date who they want to date."

Of course she's right. You don't have to look far back "in the history of the world" to find royals marrying off their daughters before they'd even reached puberty. And Hollywood continues to be rife with mismatched couples—like Dennis Quaid and Laura Savoie—that are reminiscent of old Hollywood drama like Charlie Chaplin's marriage to Oona O'Neill, when he was 53 and she was only 18. Or how about Elvis Presley, at 25, marrying a 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu, or 27-year-old R. Kelly secretly marrying 15-year-old Aaliyah

There's a saying that goes, "Everything in life is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power." There's an extent to which the power relationships and vulnerability inherent in sex and love can be gratifying and exciting for both parties, but there's a tremendous potential for those dynamics to get out of hand. If left unchecked, it's easy for a power imbalance to blur the lines of consent, and a big age gap often results in a big power imbalance. But should these concerns really apply to Camila Morrone?

That depends. Obviously, there's a big difference between a 14-year-old and a 22-year-old, but what may not be as obvious to someone whose brain is still developing is that there is also a huge difference between a 22-year-old and a 45-year-old. In the eyes of the law, they are both adults. They can sleep together, get married—hell, she's even old enough that they can go drinking together! Though if they ever rent a car together, he should probably be the driver, because insurance rates go through the roof for people whose brains are not done maturing

The point is, someone who has been 22, who remembers what it was like to be 22—23 years ago—should know that a 22-year-old is still learning a lot of the basics about life. By and large, they are impressionable, naïve, and pretty easy for an older person—especially a wealthy and respected celebrity—to manipulate.

Camila Morrone may be an exception to that. She may be wise beyond her years, and the connection that she and DiCaprio have together may be that rare kind of soul-bond that is so profound and unquestionable that age really does become irrelevant. Certainly, if that's what she feels is going on, then she has every right to invest in that belief and see how it plays out—even if it ends up being one of those twenty-something mistakes that she learns from. Alternatively, if it's just exciting to spend some time with someone as famous and interesting as Leo, and she's not taking it too seriously, all the better.

Either way, we shouldn't let our morbid curiosity about a mismatched couple undermine her autonomy. No one can tell her what love and romance should look like in her life, and any suggestion that she's in it for Leo's Hollywood connections looks pretty absurd when you consider that her stepfather is Al Pacino. Camila is just fine—great even…but we're all going to keep commenting about Leo as long as he keeps seeking out women who are so much younger—and potentially very vulnerable to that power imbalance. You get one, maybe two age-defying soul-bonds per lifetime, Leo! At this point, dating women who are in that sweet spot of technically-legal-but-with-a-brain-that-is-still-developing is just your thing, and it is not a good look. Maybe stick with climate change instead.

In the interview, Morrone also expressed her desire to be recognized for more than her connection to Leo, saying of her new film, Mickey and the Bear, "I think more and more now that people are seeing the film, I'm slowly getting an identity outside of that… which is frustrating, because I feel like there should always be an identity besides who you're dating." With any luck, the positive reviews are a sign that she will soon have made a name for herself, and will not be thought of as "Leo's girlfriend" for much longer.

And with a bit more luck, maybe Leo will commit to a relationship long enough for a girlfriend to enter her thirties.

MUSIC

Joyner Lucas Endures a Crisis of Faith in "Devil's Work" Video

Joyner confronts God for taking the good and empowering the bad in his striking new video.

Joyner Lucas soared to fame, seemingly overnight, when his chilling video for "I'm Not Racist" went viral and earned him a Grammy nomination.

But in reality Joyner has been hard at work since his days in the underground hip hop group Film Skool Rejekts, back in the mid-aughts. He had four studio albums under his belt before "I'm Not Racist" started garnering some well-deserved mainstream recognition. Oh, and an Eminem co-sign in an interview conducted by Elton John certainly didn't hurt his career either.

However, Joyner has more than earned all of the attention he's received over the last few years. He's cultivated a reputation for delivering hard-hitting, introspective, and honest bars without sacrificing anything in the way of technical skill on the mic. And in the second single off of his forthcoming album, ADHD, Joyner continues to innovate and impress.

The video for "Devil's Work" features Joyner alone in a church, accompanied only by a half-empty bottle of Hennessy, a statue of Jesus on the cross, and a serious crisis of faith. He challenges God, airing his grievances directly in a way that almost feels like he's serving up a sincere and emotionally wrought diss track to the lord, calling him out for making some questionable and unjust decisions—especially regarding which souls get taken early and which are granted positions of power. "Give us back 2Pac," he pleads, "and take that _____ Suge [...] Give us Biggie, give us Pun, give us triple X / Take that _____ Trump with you, that's a bigger threat [...] I need you to give us back Martin Luther, take Martin Shkreli / Give us back Malcolm, take R. Kelly." Joyner goes on to pay respects to a few other people who were taken too soon: Michael Jackson, Nipsey Hussle, Selina, Aaliyah, Trayvon Martin, and Emmett Till to name a few.

As one might expect given its political statements,"Devil's Work" has been met with some mixed reactions. Love it or hate it, Joyner has managed to capture a common (if under-discussed) aspect of the human experience: those long nights where we get drunk with doubt and overwhelmed by the sprawling list of senseless injustices in the world. He does so with a certain blend of honesty; raw, emotional candor; and lyrical prowess that only Joyner Lucas could deliver.



Dustin DiPaulo is a writer and musician from Rochester, New York. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Florida Atlantic University and can most likely be found at a local concert, dive bar, or comedy club (if he's not getting lost somewhere in the woods).


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