CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WTVR) - The Chesterfield teenager whose prom night story went viral earlier this month created a video to set the record straight about what happened that night (scroll down to watch video).
In the original viral post, the student named Clare claimed she was kicked out of the area's home school prom on May 10 because her dress was too short and her dance moves too provocative.
As international coverage of the situation grew, witnesses who saw the incident started to speak out.
Reporter Chelsea Rarrick spoke with Ann Duncan Tuesday evening. Duncan said she was a volunteer at the home-school prom and wrote to CBS 6 after seeing our stories on the air.
Duncan said she believed both sides were not told, and she started with prom dress code, and the length of the dress.
"The dress maybe at the door when she came in was fingertip length, but it was spandex," said Duncan. "It was very stretchy, it was riding up. It was right below her butt cheeks by the time I saw her."
Duncan said she did not see Clare dance, but responsed to the teen's post where she wrote that the dads on the balcony were ogling and talking amongst themselves.
"It was very crowded," said Duncan. "There were 500 kids there so to be able to even say what they were looking at would have been very difficult."
"The words used by the young lady to describe the events were specifically chosen to debase the parents who inconvenienced her," the woman continued. "For example, 'ogling' makes the dads out to be perverts, instead of concerned parents debating about the right thing to do."
Similar email and comments from readers who questioned the student's claims can be found on WTVR.com and other websites around the world.
So in response to the feedback she received after her original post, Clare and her boyfriend James posted a video on YouTube to clear up some things.
"The dads did make me uncomfortable at the prom," she said. "They were doing nothing except standing there and watching everybody. I don't personally think the dads were sitting there being perverts."
She said the focus of the story should not be on the dads. Clare said the purpose of her post was to address "slut shaming."
"[When you] tell women that because they were wearing a certain thing, it does not matter that a man molested you or raped you," Clare said in the video. "I did not get raped or molested at the prom or anything, but it was the mentality of you have to dress a certain way because men can't control their thoughts and actions in regards to you if you don't."
Clare and James said their issue is not with the home-school community in which they were raised, rather it is about "people treating people like people."
Still, Duncan said she believes people should listen to all sides.
"I want people to be able to put all the pieces together and then come up with their own idea of what happened," she said.
The organizer first referred to in Clare’s blog post as “Mrs. D.” has not responded to CBS 6 inquiries for an interview to see if she made the comment that Clare allegedes.
The post maintains that Mrs. D. gestured her off the dance floor, into a corner with another woman.
It was there that Mrs. D told her some of the dads who were chaperoning had complained “her dancing was too provocative” and that it was going to “cause the young men at the prom to think impure thoughts.”
