Robin Thicke’s unrated video of Blurred Lines, featuring naked female models, has been seen almost 500,000 times on Vevo. Blurred Lines also popularized the #thicke hashtag on Twitter and has brought the R&B veteran singer his biggest hit.

The song is now no. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and on iTunes. Robin Thicke announced that his album bearing the single’s name will be released on July 30.

But when the video was released last March, video-sharing giant YouTube thought the Blurred Lines music video crossed the line and was too explicit, according to E!

“YouTube took down the Unrated version of #BLURREDLINES because it was too hot," said Robin Thicke in a tweet last March.

The tamer version of the video, which shows the female models clothed but with clear plastic tops, is still on YouTube and has now been seen more than 50 million times, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Recently, “Blurred Lines” has been criticized from feminists and a number of bloggers for its sexual lyrics.

In April, blogger Lisa Huynh wrote, “Has anyone heard Robin Thicke's new rape song? Basically, the majority of the song…has the R&B singer murmuring ‘I know you want it’ over and over into a girl’s ear. Call me a cynic, but that phrase does not exactly encompass the notion of consent in sexual activity.”

The Daily Beast’s Tricia Romano, according to The Hollywood Reporter, renewed the intense criticism Blurred Lines received on Monday when she wrote, “The subject [of the song] itself is enough to make some female music fans uncomfortable. The song is about how a girl wants crazy wild sex but doesn’t say it -- positing that age-old problem where men think no means yes into a catchy, hummable song.”

All three men in the video are married and have children. The Huffington Post said that Thicke claimed to have asked his wife, actress Paula Patton, to work with the naked female models.

Responding to the criticism “Blurred Lines” has received, Thicke told GQ, “People say, ‘Hey, do you think this is degrading to women?’ I'm like, ‘Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I've never gotten to do that before. I've always respected women.’ So we just wanted to turn it over on its head and make people go, ‘Women and their bodies are beautiful. Men are always gonna want to follow them around.’”

Despite the criticism it has received, however, the single has been riding a wave of success in the U.S. and U.K.

Only weeks after the Official Charts Company (OCC) of the U.K. said that “Blurred Lines” made history by becoming the fastest selling record in the country, breaking its own record twice, Billboard is reporting that Robin Thicke scored his first Billboard Hot 100 No.1.

The song, which features hip-hop artists T.I. and Pharrell Williams, jumped from no. 6 to no. 1 on the highly regarded music chart.

It also hit no. 1 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100.

“Blurred Lines” vaulted to the no. 1 spot as the chart’s top digital, airplay and Streaming Gainer. According to Billboard, it is the first song to claim all three honors simultaneously since the lattermost award was introduced last year.

The track, which was released with a controversial music video, spent a second week at No. 1 on Digital Songs, with a total of 315,000 downloads sold, based on statistics by Nielsen SoundScan.

Asked by Metro UK if the single’s success can be attributed to the video with topless models, Thicke said, “The interesting thing is the topless video has around 25 million fewer views than the one with clothes on. The song really took off as soon as it came out on radio. I’d love to give the video the credit but the song’s pretty good.”

Thicke told Metro UK that “he couldn’t be happier” with how the single has done.

Its feminist critics aside, the single have been well received by industry pros. Amy Lipsky of TheCelebrityCafe.com said that “Blurred Lines” has a unique blend of soft R&B and rap that makes it hard not to sway your hips to the beat.

Speaking with the Breakfast Club, Robin Thicke explained, “I've realized as I've gotten older that we all think we're living either in a black or white world, or on a straight path, but most of us are living right inbetween those straight lines,” reports Hot New Hip Hop.

Click the link Here to watch the unrated version of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" [Warning: NSFW].

Check out the slightly more appropriate video below: