Kelly himself declined, through his manager, multiple requests to comment for this story.
#Who raised singer r kelly free#
All of the women targeted by the current media onslaught are legal adults of sound mind and body, with their own free will.” Kelly’s management provided a statement to The Post early Friday saying that the singer “has close friendships with a number of women who are strong, independent, happy, well cared for and free to come and go as they please. Mika El-Baz, executive vice president of RCA Records and Sony Music, declined to comment.
A Kelly representative called the effort the “public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture.” The Time’s Up’s Women of Color, a powerful anti-sexual-harassment group that includes producer Shonda Rhimes, actress Rashida Jones and director Ava DuVernay, demanded this week that RCA drop Kelly and that “over two decades” of allegations be investigated. (Scott Legato/Getty Images)īut a shift seems to be taking place, sparked by a damning 2017 report by BuzzFeed’s Jim DeRogatis that focused on the women who remain with Kelly, combined with the growing power of the #MeToo movement. (Kelly denies the allegations made by the Dallas woman.) Kelly remains an active recording artist for RCA Records, a division of Sony, and continues to get booked for arena shows that are promoted by local radio stations.
#Who raised singer r kelly code#
That chilling code of silence remains today, almost 25 years after the singer’s illegal marriage to 15-year-old protege Aaliyah, and only weeks after a Dallas woman accused Kelly of knowingly giving her herpes. Kelly continued to settle with more women as allegations against him mounted, but music industry luminaries remained silent, instead smiling for pictures alongside him at platinum record ceremonies. “Being so much older, I see how wrong stuff was and how ultimately gross and pedophile-ish it was, but that’s something you have to have your adult brain process.”īack in 2002, Sampson didn’t speak, silenced by a familiar, legal tool: A non-disclosure agreement. “He makes you feel like he’s a wounded puppy, like he’s hurt so deeply, that there’s good there - he just can’t get it all out,” said Sampson, who was a 16-year-old Epic Records intern when she says Kelly first approached her in 1999. Two of those women, Tracy Sampson and Patrice Jones, have never publicly spoken about him before. Six women once connected with Kelly spoke to The Post about what they say were abusive relationships. (Whitney Leaming, Sarah Hashemi/The Washington Post)Ī Washington Post investigation found that this disregard for the singer’s alleged behavior played out on many levels, from the billionaire record executive who first signed the dynamic young vocalist in the early 1990s to the low-paid assistants who arranged flights, food and bathroom breaks for his traveling entourage of young women. Kelly's accusers ask if his music will finally stop. “I’m glad you did not watch those tapes.”Īfter decades of abuse allegations R.
“Because, Dave, if I watch the tape and that’s him, I’m gone and you’re not getting those records,” Bivens said he told McPherson. “Did you watch the tape?” Bivens recalls saying. Is this stuff true? he asked Rocky Bivens, a Kelly assistant, according to Bivens. He did, however, ask one question about the star’s offstage life. And that’s just where David McPherson needed him.Ī rising young executive at Epic Records, McPherson had made his name by signing the Backstreet Boys and Mandy Moore and was eager to launch the label’s new boy band, B2K, with Kelly’s behind-the-scenes guidance. 1 hits for some of the world’s biggest stars, including Michael Jackson and Celine Dion. Even as bad publicity swirled, Kelly could always retreat to the studio, where he wrote No. Of all the scandals that had stirred around Kelly in his decade of fame, this one felt especially dire.īut Kelly remained a potent talent, a hitmaker who suavely skipped from sexy make-out jams (“Bump n’ Grind”) to inspirational tear-jerkers (“I Believe I Can Fly”), and the industry wasn’t done with him yet. It was 2002, and police were investigating a sex tape that appeared to show the R&B superstar with a 14-year-old girl. Kelly was in trouble again, and it was really bad this time.
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