Grammy-winning singer R. Kelly has threatened to “sue everybody” involved in the multipart documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired over the weekend on Lifetime.
According to TMZ, Kelly did not watch the show, but is “disgusted” and
plans to file lawsuits against anyone who took part in executive producer dream
hampton’s creation, including Lifetime and the alleged survivors of his abuse.
The six-hour, three-part special detailed
accounts of Kelly’s history of alleged physical and emotional abuse of women,
including a recent “abusive cult”
in which the singer is accused of holding women against their will.
The claims, reported in July 2017 by
Jim DeRogatis of BuzzFeed, come from sources living in one of the
two homes in which Kelly is reportedly running the cult, including from one in
metro Atlanta.
Here are seven things to know about R. Kelly:
1. He was
born in Chicago.
Robert Sylvester Kelly was born in
Hyde Park, Chicago, in Illinois and grew up with three siblings and a single
mother.
2. He is a
three-time Grammy winner.
In 1998, Kelly won best R&B
song, best male R&B vocal performance and best song written for a motion
picture for his hit, “I Believe I Can Fly.”
3. Kelly
wrote about being sexually abused as a child by an older woman in his
autobiography.
In his 2012 memoir “Soulacoaster,”
Kelly wrote about being sexually abused as a child by an older woman, who he
referred to as a relative.
In an interview with GQ,
Kelly said the abuse went on from around age 7 or 8 to 14 or 15 and occurred
every other day or week.
4. He has
been accused of sexual misconduct several times.
DeRogatis, the same reporter behind
2017’s BuzzFeed story, penned the first sexual abuse
allegations against Kelly in a 2000 Chicago Sun-Times story, which focused on a
woman named Tiffany Hawkins, who claimed the two had sex when she was 15-18
years old between 1991 to 1994.
In 2013, DeRogatis, who received
anonymously sourced sex tapes of Kelly and underage girls, said he had
interviewed nearly two dozen women who claimed Kelly sexually abused them,
according to Village Voice.
In 2008, after he was arrested and
indicted on child pornography charges, Kelly was found not guilty on all 14 counts.
5. He married a 15-year-old Aaliyah
in 1994, faking her age in a falsified marriage certificate.
The late singer Aaliyah Haughton,
who died tragically in a plane crash at age 22, met R. Kelly when she was 12
years old.
In 1994, after the two formed a
close partnership, Kelly, 27, secretly married 15-year-old Aaliyah using a
falsified marriage certificate in which she lied about being 18 years old.
Eventually, Aaliyah’s family found
out about the controversial marriage and the two ended the union with an
annulment.
Kelly and Aaliyah also began
recording the album “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” in 1993.
6. An April
2017 lawsuit claimed that Kelly had an affair with a deputy’s wife.
In April 2017, Kelly was accused of being involved with the wife of Kenny Bryant,
a deputy in the Mississippi Hinds County Sheriff’s Department.
Asia Childress, Bryant’s wife, lied
about ending the relationship with Kelly when she and Bryant married.
Eventually, Childress convinced
Bryant to move to Georgia for his career, but “the ulterior motive ... was to
foster her relationship with R. Kelly,” the lawsuit read.
Bryant said he went through
“grievous mental and emotional distress” and “financial ruin.”
7. Kelly
reportedly has a home in Atlanta.
In a 2015 interview with AJC’s Melissa Ruggieri, Kelly said: “I’ve always
loved Atlanta, I’ve always called it Chicago’s cousin. When I come to Atlanta
it reminds me of my hometown. I’ve got a lot of friends here, so it always felt
like home. I used to say all the time when I get a chance I’m gonna get a
three-flat and come to Atlanta and I finally got my chance and I’m here and I’m
just trying to plant a few seeds here musically.”
According to the 2017 BuzzFeed story, one of the homes in which Kelly
is accused of running a cult in is located in Georgia's Johns Creek
neighborhood in north Fulton County.
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