Dee Barnes Responds to Dr. Dre’s Apology

Dr. Dre’s ‘young and dumb’ rebuttal isn’t sitting well with a victim

Last week, Dr. Dre was riding on top of the world. The F. Gary Gray-directed N.W.A.biopic, Straight Outta Compton, inspired by and based on his, and his band of brothers’ usurp of the music industry and their changing of the mainstream Black, inner-city narrative, debuted at #1 at the box office, with weekend sales of over $50 million. Furthermore, his somewhat-surprise new album, Compton, was extremely well-received, and debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts with over 250,000 first-week units sold.

However, everything wasn’t all gravy for the Beats by Dre head honcho. The domestic abuse allegations that have hung over Dre since his Chronic/2001 days were re-highlighted during this current run, most notably, Dee Barnes, the journalist who claims she was black-balled from the industry after being physically assaulted by the rapper and producer. After an admission of guilt in the New York Times from Dre, Barnes responded with a story, published on Gawker.com, in which she detailed not only the horrific nature of her abuse, but why she feels Dre should not be excused because of a generic apology over 20 years later. An excerpt is below.
In 1999, eight years after the incident, Dr. Dre added insult to injury by producing and releasing the Eminem single “Guilty Conscience.” This song was no “fucking mistake.” Em’s rap brought up Dre’s violent past while accusing him of hypocrisy: “You gonna take advice from somebody who slapped Dee Barnes?” Eminem also rapped: “Mr. Dre, Mr. N.W.A., Mr. A.K. coming, Straight Outta Compton, y’all better make way. How in the fuck are you gonna tell this man not to be violent?”