R. Kelly best-selling and well-known R&B singer, as far back as the nineties, has been mired in scandalous charges which include alleged child sexual assaults with underage girls. According to VULTURE, various women also have claims against Kelly for alleged physical and sexual abuse.
On February 22, a court based in Chicago charged Kelly with ten separate counts of aggravated felony sexual abuse.
The accusations involve women who were minors at the time of the alleged offenses and a sentence could carry up to life in prison, VULTURE reported. He turned himself in but was eventually released from jail on bond, after he pled not guilty before a US court on February 25. He was given court orders to surrender his passport, weapons, and not to have contact with anyone under eighteen or with his alleged victims ahead of his trial, BBC Musics noted.
R. Kelly emotionally opens up about his sexual abuse charges
On "CBS This Morning," Kelly vehemently denied the sexual abuse accusations leveled at him in his first interview since his release on bail.
He described the allegations as “stupid” and questioned interviewer Gayle King on why he would keep a person against her will; appealing to the public to “use your common sense.” When asked about his allegations that he held young women captive in a cult, he swiftly replied “Not true.”
According to BBC News, in one accusation from 2002, Kelly was acquitted in 2008 of twenty-one counts of child sexual assault based on a scandalous tape with a thirteen-year-old girl. King asked if it has any relevance to current accusations and he replied “absolutely no”.
The fifty-two-year-old singer stood his ground and professed his innocence. Clearly becoming emotional, he asked King while he addressed himself in the third person, how stupid it would be after all he has gone through in his “crazy past” to revel in sexually abusing minors?
Looking into the camera, he said: “Quit playing, this is not me!”
A further case of alleged sexual abuse by Kelly
As reported by BBC News, King earlier interviewed two women, Azriel Clary, and Joycelyn Savage who both shared a residence with Kelly. Clary's parents alleged her daughter was held against her will and issued a statement condemning Kelly's sexual assault. They claim their daughter suffered “severe mental abuse” and “justice” must be brought for all underage girls Kelly has abused throughout the past decades.