Wet Leg continue to face misogyny as former member airs “dirty laundry”
Imagine, if you will, Alex Turner’s teenage girlfriend now worming out of the woodwork and taking ownership over his artistry, claiming to have been wronged by the frontman for moving on and complaining that her underlying contribution to his craft was being disregarded by the masses. It is a situation that would never be given any credence in the press. And yet, Wet Leg are once again being smeared, this time not by the ‘industry plant’ brigade but by the disgruntled ex-partner of Rhian Teasdale with nothing more than “dirty laundry” to air—a point he, Doug Richards, admits and then proceeds with all the same.
Richards, taking part in what feels like a dirty tabloid expose, only this time with the Sunday Times, has claimed that his contribution has been written out of history, something that a history’s worth of women know all too well, to such an extent that there is a phrase that dubs them in the background: behind every great man is a great woman. That platform is now being levelled at long last, and with women stepping to the foreground of that phrase, men need to start realising that relationships are about support and nobody gets nor deserves a receipt for their spiritual part in the pact.
This is an absent thought in the recent Sunday Times piece interviewing Richards, where not only is it bemoaned that his minor contributions to the band well before they were signed haven’t been recognised years later when success finally arrived, but shots are also fired at what is termed the ‘Terrible Ex Boyfriend’ genre with Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus also being indicted.
As you might expect, no mention is made of Blonde on Blonde or calls for Bob Dylan to credit his first girlfriend back in Duluth, or even Bon Iver’s muse ‘Emma’, who proved so pivotal to his artistry that she features continually in his songs, while we are led to believe that these great men transcended any influence that their exes had on them, but the women in Wet Leg will forever be indebted… or at the very least that they should take pity on the people from their past.
The fact that when they broke up, Richards was asked to leave the band should surely serve as evidence of the role he played within it. “I also felt like I helped to create it,” is hardly a quote that paints him as an irreplaceable pillar of influence. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he is being given a platform to candidly muddy the waters of Wet Leg once more, a band that nobody seems to want to accept as important contemporary musicians.
“You can’t make a cake without breaking some eggs,” Richards states in the article regarding the band’s frequent break-up-orientated lyrics. “We all do it. It’s difficult to be the egg though,” he adds. “I realise she wrote these lyrics during the heat of a break-up, but she could have come and told me about it after, given me a heads-up at least”. Why does Rhian Teasdale owe him this for her artistry that may well not have anything to do with him at all? If this was always the case then Leonard Cohen would’ve probably written about nine songs in his whole career before spending the rest of his days rattling off letters to myriad spurned muses.
In another more toxic point cited throughout, Richards states: “It’s just been completely surreal, watching them get massive. I keep thinking, ‘Why does it have to be the No 1 album? Could it not just be No 4 or something?’” While this dent to the ego might be passed off in a lighthearted fashion, ill-wishes to female exes is not a sentiment that should be making its way into the press – no matter how glib – in an era whereby we know how troublesome that narrative can be.
Richards’ concluding statement is that “it’s weird to have all the nice memories from a seven-year relationship tarnished, but of course we had some really happy times,” he says. “I’d like to feel more at peace with it all. It’s hard though, when they’re just everywhere.” That is the same with every single relationship. Certain pubs become untenable, mutual friends have be reconstituted, and songs from the past blare out of the radio to haunt you. While of course there is a comical undertone to the fact that Richards also has billboards to contend with, when you take into account the sullying undercurrent to Richard’s claims against Wet Leg and their art, this seems far from a laughing matter.
In this instance, the entirely normal ordeal of a break-up has been woven into part of a narrative that is becoming more and more common in pop culture: men are taking ownership over womens achievements or looking to tarnish them once surpassed. I’m sorry for your plight Doug Richards, but nobody would’ve ever known about it if you had never emerged to swing yet another hatchet at a female band finally in a position of progressive influence and sway.
