According to Brett Dinkins, Jason Derulo should have stuck to riding solo. During last week’s Fall Welcome Concert, Derulo brought an MU student onstage and danced suggestively with her. 

“To me, what happened there, from everything I know, [is] what I would consider coerced sexual harassment,” said Dinkins, a student and volunteer for MU’s Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center. 

Dinkins is not speaking on the RSVP Center’s behalf. 

Dinkins said he believes Derulo put the student in a potentially uncomfortable, possibly “damaging” situation by inviting her on stage during his performance, sitting her in a chair, giving her a lap dance and kissing her suggestively in front of a crowd of students. 

“It would be very hard for me to say ‘no’ in her situation,” Dinkins said. “You’re on stage in front of (hundreds) of people. No matter what you are or aren’t comfortable with, you don’t have time to react.” 

Freshman Shay Berry, the student Derulo brought on stage, said being picked by the artist was not a negative experience at all. 
Berry said she was in a state of shock when she got onto the stage.  

“I completely freaked out,” she said. “I was like, ‘Wait, this isn’t happening.’ It didn’t really register.” 

In retrospect, Berry said she views what happened as harmless. “Everyone was just having a little fun,” she said. 

Dinkins saw the performance as a negative reflection of MU in more ways than one. 

Besides disagreeing with the conduct on stage, Dinkins said he was troubled that it happened at an MU sponsored event and that MU failed to respond. 

“No matter what side of the issue in regard to sexual harassment it falls under, it was never appropriate to be at our Fall Welcome concert,” Dinkins said. “I think the vast majority of students do recognize that there was an inappropriate aspect to what happened, no matter what you feel.” 

Missouri Students Association President Eric Woods apologized in an email “for any offense taken by the actions of the artist” in response to Dinkins’ concerns. 

Dinkins’ opinion on what happened at the concert is not something the RSVP Center knew about, and does not represent the feelings of everyone there, RSVP Center Coordinator Danica Wolf said. 

The RSVP Center has been a place to educate and protect students on these types of issues for 20 years. The center serves as a relationship and sexual violence education and resource service, focusing on rape, sexual assault, intimate partner violence and stalking.   

Wolf said she believes there is a lot of institutional support when it comes to MU’s attitude and conduct toward sexual violence. 

“We’re certainly ahead of the curve in a lot of ways,” she said. “There’s always room for improvement.”
Spokespeople for Derulo did not respond to requests for comment.