A Brief, Highly TMI History of Jason Derulo’s Penis
Credit to Author: Bettina Makalintal| Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2019 12:32:15 +0000
No artist captured the earlier part of the decade quite like Jason Derulo. Though he might have initially seemed a flash in the pan with his 2009 hit "Whatcha Say," the Florida-born singer soon punctuated every high school dance and Bud Light-soaked college frat party with radio banger after radio banger that bore the proclamation: "Jasonnnn Derulo."
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and many karaoke impersonations and memes later, the singer announced in 2015 that he'd "outgrown" it: the days of singing "Jasonnnn Derulo" were over. But when a man can't be know for singing his own name, over and over and over, what exactly can he be known for?
For Derulo, the new answer seems to be… his penis, on whose behalf he's pushed an aggressive promotional campaign over the past month and even started a little Instagram drama.
November 21: Jason Derulo Uploads His Most Popular Instagram Post of All Time
In late November, the singer posted what was allegedly his most popular picture on Instagram to date. In a photo taken "months ago in Bali," per TMZ, Derulo stood on a wet platform wearing nothing but two gold chains and a pair of black boxers. His skin glistened, his muscles rippled, and his bulge… well, it wanted some attention, too, catching the light in a way that made its shape a little too clear. When asked by a fan "what animal" he was hiding in his pants, Derulo responded with a predictable "anaconda."
December 4: The "Anaconda" Gets Kicked Off Instagram
Less than two weeks later, Derulo's post was removed from Instagram for violating the platform's "Community Guidelines on nudity and sexual activity." According to TMZ, a spokesperson for Facebook (which owns Instagram) claimed the removal was because the picture showed "aroused genitalia."
This, Derulo said, was an example of the platform's double standard: "All these girls be on Instagram showing their ass and all kind of crazy shit, and I got underwear on—in Bali—and they took my pic down. It's discrimination. I understand: I can't help my size, but you can't take down my pic, man."
December 5: Jason Derulo Clarifies
Despite Instagram's statement that Derulo was "aroused," the singer told TMZ that it was more of a "semi," actually. "An arousal looks different. It's a different vibe. When it's fully aroused, it's a different beast," Derulo said. "It leans more to the front. If it's just on the side, and it's just chilling on the side, it's a semi vibe."
December 6: The "Anaconda" Becomes a Foot Long
Shortly after the deletion of his original post, Derulo (or a Photoshop-savvy friend) made the infamous Bali photo more Instagram-appropriate by placing a Subway foot-long in front of Derulo's foot-long. That appears to have done the trick, as the post is still up on Instagram now.
December 6: Jason Derulo Gets a $500,000 Offer From a Porn Site
On the same day, the enterprising porn site Cam Soda allegedly offered to pay Derulo $500,000 to post his pictures on their platform. In a now-deleted Instagram post, according to Paper, the singer turned down the offer and wrote, "Imma need a wayyyy bigger bag than that."
December 7-11: 5 Days with No Major Updates About Jason Derulo's Penis
*crickets*
December 12: Cats Had "Balls Everywhere"
With just over a week until the release of the film adaption of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, Derulo—who plays the cat Rum Tum Tugger—appeared on Entertainment Tonight, where he addressed the "anaconda" photo controversy. "I didn't think it was going to, like, be taken down by the 'gram. I didn't think it was gonna cause, like, this much thirst. Like, I mean, c'mon," he said. "When I was posting it in the morning, I was like, 'Oh yeah, women might like this one,' you know what I'm saying? Like, 'Yeah, this is a good photo,' but I wasn't like, 'Yo, this is about to be crazy'-post. Nah, not at all."
As Derulo took the conversation back to Cats, he described the CGI suits needed to render the film's computer-generated hellscape. For the movie, Derulo said, the cast had to wear tight CGI suits, which were similar to being naked but "not in a good way." With himself and the rest of the cast wearing these getups, he said, "But we were all naked. Balls everywhere… Balls and bulges everywhere."
December 16: Jason Derulo Says His Penis Was CGI'd Out of Cats
With the mental image of Cats CGI suit and all the flopping balls fresh in our memory, Derulo went on SiriusXM's Radio Andy. Talking with host Andy Cohen, the singer claimed that that his genitals had been edited out of Cats to complete the slinky feline look. "You think that they airbrushed your penis out of the cats?" Cohen asked. "One hundred and twenty-five percent. I see it in the trailer," Derulo responded.
Tomorrow: What Treasures Can a New Day Bring?
Who knows! We can watch the Cats trailer to squint and see just how much bulge was edited out. Or, we could do literally anything else with our lives—like spend 57 minutes and 44 seconds listening to clips of Jason Derulo singing nothing more than his own name. Jasonnnn Derulo lives on, if only in our hearts.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.