RedHanded - Episode 248 - R Kelly: The Pied Piper of R&B

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

In 2021, a 51-year-old man referred to as “Daddy” by the followers of his alleged sex cult, was found guilty of 8 counts of sex trafficking. Breaking any of Daddy’s rules would result in brutal punishment; including beatings, solitary confinement, and starvation.  “Daddy” kept his victims – most of them teenagers – locked up in his mansion. And all the while, he was topping music charts across the world with his era-defining R&B hits… This is the story of the rise and fall of Robert Sylvester Kelly. Sources: redhandedpodcast.com  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to a pretty terrifying Red Handed. I would be amazed if anyone listening hasn't heard about this. No, they definitely will have. But I suspect what might be the case, as is often the case with stories like this, is that sometimes people don't get past the headlines. And that's not a judgment because I, for one, also didn't realise just how fucked up this was until we did this deep dive. Yeah, I think I would probably count myself in that number as well. So we've got nothing to say, nothing to announce, so let's just get on with it. In 2021, a 51-year-old man referred to only as Daddy by the followers of his alleged sex cult was found guilty on eight counts of sex trafficking

and one count of racketeering. The cult was made up predominantly of teenage girls. This man referred to them as his babies. To be one of Daddy's babies, you needed to adhere to some very strict rules, which included asking permission to do anything, from brushing your teeth to using the toilet. And breaking any of Daddy's rules would result in a swift punishment, asking permission to do anything, from brushing your teeth to using the toilet.

And breaking any of Daddy's rules would result in a swift punishment, which could be anything from a beating, confinement, starvation, or all three. And although this man only faced justice in 2021, his crimes began in the early 1990s. For three decades, he abused young women, seemingly with complete impunity. And he did all of this while consistently topping the charts across the world with a string of R&B hits. We are, of course, talking about the Pied Piper of R&B himself, R. Kelly. But before we dig into his crimes, let's take a look at Kelly's formative years to see how he became the poisonous individual we know today. Robert Sylvester Kelly was born on the 8th of January 1967 to a poor single mother on the

south side of Chicago. He was the third of four children born to Joanne Kelly, a school teacher from Guadalupe. Not much is known about the identity of Kelly's dad, other than Joanne calling him a deadbeat. Interestingly, all of Joanne's four children had different fathers. Kelly's eldest sibling is Teresa, then he has an older half-brother Bruce, and a younger half-brother Carrie. According to Bruce, Kelly was a super shy and introverted kid, and Bruce could make him cry by just staring at him. If people haven't watched, and I know this is very early in the episode already to be bringing it up, but obviously Surviving R. Kelly, the most famous of documentaries regarding this case, the first entire episode is basically about this, about how his siblings talked about where they grew up was incredibly rough, but that Kelly, Robert Kelly, R. Kelly, whatever we want to call him, was an incredibly shy kid, that he never came outside, that he would often just stay in the house, and that if you looked at him the wrong way, you would be able to make him cry.

Like a very, very sensitive child. And it didn't help Kelly's confidence much either, that he had severe dyslexia. And still, to this day, he struggles to read and write. He was definitely considered the runt of the litter. And Kelly's mother was always worried about him. She felt like she had to protect him from the other kids in the neighbourhood. He was, by all accounts, a mummy's boy, but it seemed that Kelly's relationship with Joanne was a little peculiar. In one interview, he talks about how his mum would take him to McDonald's every morning for breakfast, and how he loved to drink from her coffee cup, deliberately putting his lips on his mother's lipstick marks as he did so because he liked the taste just quite that's just made us uncomfortable

red flags already yeah i mean shy introverted kid who doesn't like to come out and cries if his siblings look at him not ideal but not not like okay everything's gone bad already but this as we've seen many a time when he's a mummy's boy it doesn't usually end that well and this in particular I find quite disturbing because I do not think they made lipsticks that even tasted remotely okay until like 2014 this is just gross not good I'm sure you could get your hands on that did you ever have that lip gloss that like tasted like toothpaste and it just like broke all the capillaries in your lips and made them really swollen i did yes yeah yeah yeah yeah good times that was definitely in like 20 like 2006 good times you feel like, this is causing me pain. What am I doing this?

So yeah, red flags already. Say them as you see them. I think that's going to be the theme of this episode. So during Kelly's formative years, a number of things took place that would have a major impact on any child. And he detailed some of these in his autobiography, Solar Coaster, The Diary of Me. A solar coaster? Yes. Great, great name. Really? Is it great? It's okay. It's better than The Diary of Me.

Yes, I will give you that. At the age of eight, Kelly and his best friend, Lula Simpkins, were walking along the banks of a flooded tributary to the Little Calumet River in Chicago Heights, when suddenly a group of older kids started shoving them. Lula fell in the fast-moving stream. The other kids ran away, and the last Kelly saw of his friend

was her screaming as the strong current carried her away. And the last Kelly saw of his friend was her screaming as the strong current carried her away. Lula's body was discovered later that day. That is pretty traumatic. Yeah, I think even if there weren't the little red flags, I just did a flag waving. Yes. That would be incredibly difficult for anyone to see. Yeah. And Lula's body, when it was discovered, it was in a bad state. Her skull had been caved in after smashing against some rocks. So yes, absolutely, this is an incredibly traumatic experience. But if you think that's where it ends, sadly not, because as traumatic as an experience this must have been for Robert Kelly,

it certainly wouldn't be the worst of his childhood. He has also revealed a number of incidents in which he was the victim of sexual abuse. In the same year that he lost his friend Lula, Kelly woke up one morning to a female family member performing oral sex on him. She then threatened to hurt him if he told anyone. The abuse escalated and continued until he was 14 years old. It was only in a 2019 interview that Kelly's younger brother, Kerry, revealed that he too was abused by this same person

and that their abuser was in fact their older sister, Teresa. That is pretty shocking. We often, of course, come across familial incest sexual abuse happening in the home that is not something that is shocking for this show or for you I'm sure dear listener as a fan of true crime but the sister being the culprit is pretty shocking yeah I think overall in child abuse cases it's more likely to be a male abusing a female. Or a male abusing a male. Exactly.

Actually, the statistics show that men abusing boys is more common than men abusing girls. Right. But it's very, very rare that we see a female sexual predator. Yes, absolutely. And then on top of that, that they're siblings. It's just unimaginable. And Carey believes that Kelly's later hypersexuality was Teresa's fault. In another interview on the subject, Kelly said that he remembers feeling ashamed of the abuse as it happened. But after a few years, he began to actually look forward to it. He then likened it to putting a loaded gun in a kid's hand, saying that the kid would likely grow up to be a shooter.

Obviously, you don't need us to tell you that the majority of people who are sexually abused as children do not go on to become sexual abusers. So I take issue with what he's saying but I understand what he's saying in that if you are sexually abused I can see that that would increase the likelihood that something like this goes on to happen because it's an incredibly traumatic thing yeah and we're going to talk about sort of traumatic reenactment and stuff like that again nothing new in the world of true crime just to touch on him talking about how he at first felt incredibly ashamed of it, but later went on to look forward to the abuse happening. This is also something that I don't know if we've touched upon, actually, I can't remember if we've touched upon

in Red Handed. But this is something when I've watched interviews with victims of sexual abuse, particularly when the victims are teenage boys. They talk often about how they felt so much shame and why they didn't come forward for a very long time because physically they felt like their bodies were enjoying the abuse that was happening. And so that creates so many layers of extra shame and confusion because it was something they didn't want to happen, but their body was having a physical response to this thing being done to them. And I think that that's an important thing to state. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An erection is not consent. Exactly. So yeah, picking back up with his putting a gun in a child's hand analogy. Again,

as we know, being a victim of sexual abuse yourself does not mean that you will go on to be an abuser. And it also doesn't work as an excuse for why someone would go on to be an abuser. But in Kelly's situation, and in ones like this, it might be a case of what's known as identifying with the aggressor. When Kelly's sister abused him, he was powerless. And then, as he grew up, he began to identify with her, and then went on to emulate her abusive behavior. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history.

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And Kelly briefly mentions another story of sexual abuse in his book. So he claims that he's been the victim of multiple predators in his life. And in this case, he says that when he was 10 years old, an older man who was close to the family lured him to his apartment where he attempted to have sex with him. Kelly only names this figure as Mr. Blue. He says that he immediately ran away and told his mother, who then reported the incident

to the police. But according to Kelly's brother Kerry, that's not exactly what happened. Kerry refers to the man as Mr Henry and claims that both he and Kelly were abused by Mr Henry for quite some time, before Kerry was the one who reported it to their mother. Kerry went on to say that he believes that his brother Robert got the worst of the abuse and that it's likely out of shame that he refuses to speak any more about the subject. In the book Soulless, the case against R. Kelly, Jim Derogatis interviews a number of mental health professionals and they report that Kelly exhibits many of the common symptoms of childhood victims. Many victims of sexual abuse will struggle with sex addiction

and sometimes insecurity and paranoia. Kelly admits in his own book that he regularly likes to sleep in his closet because he feels safe in there, and even said that he has nightmares of being raped by women. And another particularly strange incident took place when Kelly was 12 years old. According to him, a group of local thugs robbed him of his bike and shot him in the shoulder. But his mother Joanne says that Kelly actually found a revolver that somebody had left lying in the house and purposefully shot himself

in the shoulder. Now, we don't know exactly which of these is true and it's also hard to know if it was Joanne's version that is true why he would do that. Is it because he was trying to harm himself? Was it a plea for attention? It's hard to know. It wouldn't be unlikely considering everything that happened to him. Yes. So despite his childhood traumas and his difficulty reading and writing, Kelly did excel at one thing during his time at school. Music. In 1984, he performed at his school talent show and sang Stevie Wonder's Ribbon in the Sky. Years later, he likened that performance to the spider biting Peter Parker, saying that it was the moment he discovered his superpower.

Eventually, he was expelled from his prestigious academy due to failing grades. But he still spent an odd amount of time hanging around the area after school in his early 20s. Robert Kelly soon started to busk on the street and worked as a stripper to make ends meet. After he'd saved enough money, Kelly headed to LA, where he joined up with three other singers and formed a group called MGM, which stood for Musically Gifted Men. Together, they performed as R. Kelly and MGM, and they got their chance at the big time after winning a TV talent show called The Big Break. I never in a bajillion squillion years would have pitted R. Kelly to someone who basically went on The X Factor. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Again, it's just one of those

things because he is such a huge character in the world of pop, R&B, whatever, music. You don't even think about what his origin story is or where he came from. It's like someone who's always been there. Well, I think that's probably just because of how old we are. That like when we first probably started to understand what chart music was, R. Kelly was all over it. So they went on this olden time ex-factor and they won $100,000 and ended up being signed to Jive Records. Jive Records were enormous. They had signed DJ Jazzy Jeff, The Fresh Prince, A Tribe Called Quest, E-40, other big names, it goes on. So that meant that

Kelly now had a solid team behind him. And at the age of 25, his career finally began to take off. Jive Records put Kelly in an R&B group called Public Announcement. Their second single, Honey Love, from their debut album, Born Into The 90s, reached number one in the Billboard charts. The following year, Kelly decided to split from the group and released his first solo album, branding himself as a hyper-sexual R&B thug. This solo album was titled 12 Play, and the cover features the singer wearing black shades, an open waistcoat, baggy trousers, holding a walking stick with a mirror attached to the bottom. And yeah, it's what's known in novelty stores as a dirty old man stick. If you still don't understand what I'm talking about, the mirror is used to look up the skirts of unsuspecting women and it was on his album cover. They always tell you. Yeah, they really do. They

really do. Yeah. It's very, very 90s, isn't it? Very 90s. We weren't allowed patent shoes at my Catholic school because on the off chance that your knickers would be reflected in the patent leather and a boy would be able to... In your girls' school? No, at the Catholic school, which was mixed. I don't think we were allowed patent shoes at the posh school either, but that was probably for different reasons. Just before Kelly released his second album, his mother, Joanne, died from cancer. Kelly has told varying stories about his mother's death.

In one interview, he claimed to be unaware that she even had cancer, and then said that when he finally found out, he rushed to her deathbed where she told him to get out. In another interview with GQ years later, Kelly claimed that he'd stayed by Joanne's side until she passed away. But Kerry, his younger brother, tells a different story. According to Kerry, once Kelly started making money and got famous, he pretty much cut his mother out of his life.

And allegedly, while Kelly was riding around in a Mercedes-Benz, Joanne was still driving around in an old banger. And Kelly also refused to pay for any of his mother's medical bills, allegedly. And Kerry thinks that it's because he never forgave his mother for failing to protect him from sexual abuse and again it's very hard to know which is true what's true is it a combination of all of these things but i wouldn't be surprised if carrie's story about r kelly cutting his mom out of his life was true i know obviously we talked about how close they were when they were younger and that she she cod him. I think that's fair to say. That's pretty much the image that's

put across in Surviving R. Kelly. But also we know that a natural tendency of people that have been abused, especially when it's like familial household abuse like this was, is a feeling of resentment towards the parental figure in that why didn't you stop this happening yeah and i can understand if that resentment was obviously still there for him so when r kelly's second album dropped it sold six million copies around the world and his song bump and grind beat whitney houston's i will always love you to the number one spot in the charts that's pretty good pub quiz knowledge there you go everybody remember it write it down i would be amazed if the pub quiz has an r kelly question but just in case you can never know too many things kids so kelly status as a hit maker was

cemented with this chart topper and he began working with huge names like Billy Ocean, Janet Jackson, and an up-and-coming young talent named Aaliyah Dana Horton. Aaliyah was signed to both Jive Records and Blackground Records, a boutique label started by her uncle, Bill Hankerson. Hankerson described his niece as the light of his life and knew that she was destined for success. He said that he couldn't think of anybody better for his niece to work with on her debut album than his star client R. Kelly. The then 27-year-old Kelly wrote and produced Aaliyah's album which she released in 1994 when she was just 15. So he wrote the album, he produced it, and he named it too. And he called it Age Ain't Nothing But a Number. Quite a few yikes there.

Why does that need to be said? That doesn't feel like it needs to be said. They always tell you. Maybe if the person releasing the album is 90, he'll be like, Age Ain't Nothing But a Number, baby. But when you're 15 there is definitely a pattern within the music industry specifically of the hypersexualization of girls who are under 16 and it's been going on forever and I know Billie Eilish isn't like yet that young but when she did the cover of Vogue and everyone like lost their minds and it's a PR stunt right Miley Cyrus did the same thing it's like this big reveal of like oh you can sexualize me now and Aaliyah definitely fell victim to that the record despite its name was an absolute hit and

it sold over two million copies following its release Kelly and Aaliyah did an interview with BET dressed in matching outfits the interviewers playfully asked them about rumors that had been circulating that they were an item and the interviewers fully know that Kelly was almost 30 and Aaliyah was 15 everyone in that room knew that oh absolutely and I think it's like what you're saying they're trying to like make her marketable like saying that she's 15 doesn't have as much mass appeal as pretending that maybe she's 18. And this is in no way a defence of anything that we're about to talk about. But Aaliyah didn't look 15.

No. No. But again, they made her not look 15. Neither party admitted it. Aaliyah told the reporters that Kelly was her best friend in the whole world and her mentor. Well, that sounds like a power dynamic that makes me feel uncomfortable. That sounds fine. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But then fast forward six months to December 1994 and Vibe magazine, which was huge, it did not get bigger than Vibe in the 90s, published a four-page article showing a photocopy of a marriage certificate with the names Robert Sylvester Kelly and Aaliyah Dana Horton. Only the certificate incorrectly showed that Aaliyah was not 15.

The certificate said she was 18. So when asked about this in interviews, the pair either refused to speak about it or just denied that it was real, claiming that they were just friends. But we now know that R. Kelly got Aaliyah pregnant at the age of just 15, then married her in a secret ceremony in Chicago where he bribed a state official to falsify her age on the marriage certificate. There are so many illegal things in that little sentence. There you go.

So when Aaliyah's parents found out, two months later, they had the marriage annulled. And it's since been revealed that Aaliyah's parents accepted an off-the-books payment from Kelly of $3 million. It came with the agreement that Kelly would sever all personal ties with their daughter and that neither of them would ever make public comments about their relationship or separation. Kelly would also accept no wrongdoing or liability and Aaliyah and her parents wouldn't make any future legal claims against him. Apparently at the time Aaliyah's family didn't think that what had gone on between the two was wrong because of their daughter's age. They just thought it was two dumb young people in love who made a mistake.

And the public gave Kelly a pass too, because a lot of people just assumed that Aaliyah was older than 18. Which was obviously entirely intentional. Yeah. Aaliyah left Jive Records after this and signed with Virgin and went on to have a phenomenally successful career. Until 2001, when she tragically died in a plane crash. She was only 22. Aaliyah's private plane was overloaded by 320 kilograms and it had one more passenger on it than it should have. And the pilot was not actually certified to fly that type of plane

and he also had cocaine and alcohol in his system. Wow, perfect storm. Yeah. So about a year after the Aaliyah scandal, Kelly released his third album in 1996, featuring arguably, maybe, I would say a toss-up between this and Remix ignition it's it's the remix to ignition yeah i don't think there's an argument i would also fall in the remix to ignition camp being his most iconic yeah his second most iconic song i believe i can fly

which won him three grammys i didn't know it won three grammys to be honest i would probably put bump and grind above i believe i can fly in terms of like bob but i didn't know it won three grammys to be honest i would probably put bump and grind above i believe i can fly in terms of like bob but i didn't know it won three grammys i think i believe i can fly had more universal appeal yes i think you're probably right yeah like it was the kind of song that my dad was listening to as well as like teenagers yes i think you're absolutely right yeah and kelly if it's not already incredibly obvious, let's just hammer home this point. He had this kind of dichotomy. So on one hand, he's this extremely hyper-sexualized performer with raunchy songs like I Like the Crotch on You, for example.

And that song contains the following lyric. Quote, What? I'm not defending this but i think that's incredibly common in particularly in that like genre of music i um i still remember like what's that nelly song and it's like uh fuck what's that nelly song when they're like driving around and he's like take a take a ride with me is that what that song is that one yeah and he's like she could be 18 18 with an attitude 19 kind of snotty acting real

rude yeah yeah but he must have been like in his 30s when he was singing that song probably i put together like a hip-hop running playlist for one of my brief uh love affairs with running which always lasts about two weeks and i just like i didn't try very hard that's what I'm saying like I didn't I didn't really research I was running and I was listening and I was like oh my god like some of these lyrics are really horrible I told my friend Nikki about it she was like I'll make you a playlist she made me a playlist that's called no boys allowed that's just about female empowerment and that's much better. But the thing is, we're all getting down to it.

I remember one of mine and my friends' favourite songs to dance to was From the window to the world to the sweatshirt to my balls Oh, you bitches fall I worked with this girl at the Royal Dorm Museum when I was younger, when I was a child, and she had an acoustic cover band and they covered that song in five part harmony. And it's the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. That is incredible. I'll try and find it. I still remember what the name of the band was. I mean, it's still the kind of songs that if I was going to have like a party party, that's what we're listening to. So I'm sorry. It's just what's happening. We're stuck with that now.

As opposed to you watching glass breaking on a TV for three hours. I mean, party, party, not whatever the hell we did at my housewarming until five in the morning. But anyway, so. So, yes, getting back to this, the key point we're trying to make is that he was releasing songs like Bump and Grind and I Like the Crotch on you at the same time as he's releasing songs like i believe i can fly and if you haven't listened to these songs i really don't know what to say maybe you're like a very young person maybe you're like 18 listening to this podcast you haven't got a fucking clue what we're talking about go and listen to these songs can we say that yeah i mean i don't know i don't know think about it for yourself and make your own decision make your

own decision we're not the boss of you we're just your dad yeah tricky tricky tricky tricky indeed but anyway I Believe I Can Fly if you haven't heard it is an incredibly like soulful song it's meant to be very spiritual and he's getting that kind of inspirational almost like gospel side out of him. And it seems as though he would release his more squeaky clean songs always following a controversy as a bit of a PR move. I mean, it works. You could plot like a timeline of R. Kelly controversies followed by the I Believe I Can Flys of his discography. So in the year 2000, a journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times,

Jim DeRogatis, who's also the author of the book that we mentioned earlier, Soulless, The Case Against R. Kelly, received a fax from an anonymous source. It said, Robert's problem... is young girls.

Not very cryptic. No. I do think just receiving an anonymous fax though is one of the most terrifying things in the world because you have to watch it print and you're like what is it what's it don't send it to me scary and it just says like look behind you yeah so the facts detailed a court case from 1997 in which kelly had been sued by a woman named Tiffany Hawkins for sexual battery. It also went on to say that Kelly was having regular sex with a 13-year-old girl. And obviously we mean sexually abusing, raping a 13-year-old girl.

But that's what the facts said. After doing some digging, Jim and his team uncovered court documents which revealed that Kelly had, in fact, been sued by a woman called Tiffany Hawkins in 1996. The record stated that Kelly quote had a propensity to have sexual contact with minors. What the fuck? Is a rapist. Oh my god. Had a propensity. He had a bit of a proclivity. A little bit of a tendency. A pedo proclive for being a rapist. Like, come on. Touching tendencies. Yeah.

And the record also said that he had begun a sexual relationship with Hawkins when she was just 15 years old in 1991. Surprise, surprise. Hawkins was an aspiring singer. And she'd actually done backing vocals on Aaliyah's Age Ain't Nothing But a Number album. Hawkins had said in her court case that Kelly had not only had sex with her, but also he'd done the same with a number of her 14-year-old friends. She filed a $10 million lawsuit against him, but they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him.

This is a story that I came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years.

I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. In 1998, Kelly married one of his backing dancers, a woman named Andrea Lee, with whom he went on to have three children. They'd met two years before, when Andrea was just 19, and quickly hit it off.

In the Lifetime documentary that we've already mentioned multiple times, which is of course the series Surviving R. Kelly, Andrew describes the singer as initially being very loving and sweet, but said that after some time, he became insanely controlling, and both physically and sexually abusive towards her. She said that he had a Jekyll and Hyde personality, that R. Kelly was the sweetest person you could ever meet, but that Robert was the devil.

Kelly sprang the wedding on Andrea as a complete surprise and had decided everything himself, down to the tiniest details, again in another show of clear control. He also ensured that none of Andrea's family were present at the ceremony and eventually he was in control of who she spoke to, what she wore and even what she ate. Although the couple were married for close to 11 years, most of the public weren't even aware that Kelly had a wife. Just like everything else,

that must have been completely intentional. It was only after Andrea contemplated suicide and then looked at a checklist on a domestic abuse website that she realised that Kelly ticked almost every single box. And then it dawned on her that she was in a severely abusive relationship. Andrea was heavily pregnant with their second child when, in June 2002, she turned on the TV and saw the breaking news that Kelly had been arrested for the possession of child pornography. Your husband, the father of your children. Yeah, and you're pregnant with his second child. I mean, this poor woman, this really is,

I mean, obviously up until this point we know he's been sued by other people, but this is the first really clear instance of what we go on to see him start to do. A few months earlier, the Chicago Sunago sun times received a videotape showing r kelly having sex with and urinating on a girl who was very clearly a minor and i think that is the part of the story everybody remembers yes and i think that like we saw with the whole alia thing the public gave him a pass and then again again, with this one, this tape blew through pop culture. Like everybody was referencing it from comedy TV shows to like cartoons to movies to everybody. It was like this big open secret that everybody just made jokes about.

And everyone was just like, oh, OK, we'll just carry on. Yeah. Actually, the very same day that the paper received that tape, R. Kelly performed at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Why the fuck would you have the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City? Is it called that? It's in Utah. It's just a desert, isn't it? I don't know. But like my friend growing up, her brother was like a speed skater and they used to go to Utah all the time for Winter Olympics stuff. Oh, okay. Maybe I'm full of shit then.

Yeah, I don't know. The girl in the video was called Roshonda and she was 14 years old at the time the video was taken. Roshonda had been introduced to Kelly by her aunt, a woman named Sparkle, who'd been a dancer for Kelly. Sparkle recognised that her niece was a talented rapper and thought that Kelly would be the best person

to help her get a start in the industry. But she had absolutely no idea that she'd just turned her baby niece over to a prolific predator. Kelly kept videos from almost all of his sexual encounters over the years, many of which were with minors. The video of Roshonda had been stolen from his huge collection of sex tapes by a woman named Lisa Van Allen. Van Allen had got together with Kelly when she was just 17 years old and she had met him on the set of a music video shoot in 1998 when he was 31 years old. Kelly picked her out of the crowd of girls present on the day

and took her back to his trailer on the set and they had sex multiple times. Their relationship evolved to the point that Lisa moved to Chicago permanently to be with Kelly. She was under the impression that she was his girlfriend and had absolutely no idea that he had a wife and kids. In the series Surviving R. Kelly, Van Allen joined the chorus of voices detailing Kelly's controlling behaviour. She was forbidden to speak or even look at other

men. And because Kelly had complete financial control over her, which remember is another form of abuse, Van Allen felt forced into doing whatever he wanted her to do, including taking part in group sex with minors. In 1998, she had a threesome with Kelly and another girl. Kelly told her that the other girl was 16 years old, but a couple of years later, she found out that that girl was actually 14. Jesus. 14 years old. In a forced group sex situation. Well, obviously, if you're 14, it's a forced group sex situation.

Well, obviously, if you're 14, it's always forced. But what the fuck? I don't know. But again, like, we just have to reiterate, like, if you are not of our generation, like, R. Kelly, you didn't get bigger than R. Kelly at this point. Just in case that is not incredibly clear if r kelly you're at a video shoot and r kelly looks at you and picks you out of the entire group of girls that are there that day to invite you back to his trailer how does anybody say no to that yeah you don't you don't i just i'm a bit confused as to why so many of these girls who are like 14 are just like i'm gonna dance in a music video like who's letting that happen well i can totally understand why they want to but you're right who's letting that happen yeah one day lisa was left alone with a duffel bag

containing 40 sex tapes that kelly carried with him everywhere oh for god's i mean that's the most 90s thing we've heard so far it's the fact that he's carrying around these vhs full of incriminating evidence so she recognizes that this is her shot right she's alone with this duffel bag and then she swiped the infamous tape and it would eventually go viral across the world obviously i understand completely why lisa did this she needed some evidence you can't point the finger at a man like r kelly and not have evidence to back up what you're saying yeah but the trauma for Roshonda, not only that this thing happened to her and multiple incidents like that happened to her

with R. Kelly, but the fact that that video of her being urinated on by this predator went viral around the world. That is never not going to be in the public sphere. I mean, I just can't even imagine. So four months after the video was released to the public, Kelly was arrested on 21 counts of child pornography. But still, even though it was undeniably him in the sex tape, Kelly still had an overwhelming level of support from a group of female fans who gathered outside the courthouse to support him during this hearing. It's like the Bundy. Yeah, oh yeah. The Bundy bitches, Bundy babes, whatever we want to call them. It's just shocking. And Kelly, during this hearing, despite there being literal video evidence of him doing it, pleaded not guilty and paid $750,000 for bail and then simply carried on with business as usual. He released the remix to

Ignition just a few months later as the lead single from his sixth album, The Chocolate Factory. And this is what I'm saying. Even after this happened, people had already given him a pass for a year. They gave him another pass here because Ignition came out after this child pornography pissing on a 14-year-old. Tape came out. And yeah, you're not going to go to many places today where they're playing Remix to Ignition. No. Though my brother did say that he was in a bar in Clapham two weeks ago and they were playing Remix to Ignition. Well, that is going on item 347 of my list of why Clapham should be avoided at all costs. I know.

I know because he said, because he's been, obviously my brother works for us and he was like I didn't really think there was a problem with listening to Remix to Ignition until we did the research for this episode. And then I was sat in this bar and all of my friends were like I mean yeah, he's not

a good person but like he's still a banger and he was like I actually felt sick listening to it and I think that's probably where we'll all be by the end of this so despite the child porn charges and I don't like the term child porn if you're listening to Hunting Moorhead you'll know why we shouldn't really be talking about it like that we should be saying you know sexually explicit images of children not child porn but that's what he was charged with he was charged with possessing child pornography despite this the remix to ignition sat at number two on the billboard hot 100 for five consecutive weeks just behind another banger 50 cents in the club yeah this is so like nostalgia alley yeah i

literally like i've i've got i've just i've got a lot of images running through my head a lot of traumatic memories of no one wanting to dance with me at the disco they're playing this at the disco that's so that's how fucked up it all was okay not not current information included but in the club or remix to Ignition? Oh, that's the hardest question you've ever asked me. I think pre the age of 26, I would have said remix to Ignition. Post that, I'm going in the club. So I'm split.

Okay. Can we sing in the club? We can't sing remix to Ignition. Help me. I can't, I can't catch the, I can't hear the... Go Charlie, it's your birthday. You're going to party like it's your birthday. You found me in the club. Yeah, exactly. Nailed it. Nailed it. Moving on. So obviously, if your song is sitting at number two on the Billboard 100

after you've been fucking caught with a duffel bag full of child pornography... Yeah, that you're in. Mm-hmm. Then you can't really blame R. Kelly at this point for feeling pretty fucking untouchable. Well, he is untouchable. Thus far, he has not been touched. Okay, let me rephrase. You can't blame R. Kelly for realising that he is untouchable. So because R. Kelly was the defendant, it was basically up to him when the trial would take place, and that's because

of something called the right to a speedy trial. But in this case, it was in his best interests to delay the trial for as long as humanly possible. Kelly's defence team knew that it wouldn't look as bad if the young victims were 21 by the time they took the stand, as opposed to them looking 14, which is what they are.

I mean, despicable, but very smart. And they pulled it off. That is exactly what happened. Kelly's legal team delayed the trial until 2008, that is six whole years. And he was out on bail for the duration of those six years. In that time, he and his wife Andrea had a heated argument that ended violently and Andrea filed for a restraining order. But that didn't send him back to prison. This didn't either. While he was out on bail, Florida police raided Kelly's holiday home in 2004 and they arrested him again after they discovered a digital camera containing images of him having sex with an underage girl. Rephrase of him raping a child.

So that didn't put him in prison. It just meant that they added 12 more charges of possession of child pornography onto his trial. But his defence team argued that there hadn't been sufficient grounds to justify the raid in the first place, and the judge agreed with them, so he got away with it. Literally how? To be honest, it's tricky, because you need probable cause without a warrant, and probable cause has to be visible.

It is complicated so when the trial for the chicago charges finally began in 2008 kelly's defense team employed what's since been dubbed the shaggy defense which brings us on to another one come on another one. Honey came in and she caught me red-handed, banging on the... Caught me red-handed! Banging on the bathroom floor. No, creeping with the girl next door.

Creeping with the girl next door. Picture this and we were both butt naked, lying on the bathroom floor. How could I forget that I had given her an extra key? All this time she was standing there, she never took her eyes off me moving on so yes once again children listening yeah yeah if you do not know what we're talking about with the shaggy defense then uh if that didn't help that little rendition didn't help

clarify things then you are going to have to Google it. Basically, R. Kelly denied everything. He was just like, it wasn't me. Even though I was caught butt naked. On camera. Caught naked, doing it all, red-handed. It wasn't me. And the defense actually went as far as to claim that the man in the sex tape looked a lot like Kelly's little brother, Kerry. And that is just some classic fucking psychopath moves because he's just like,

I'm going to get back at that bastard who keeps doing interviews telling everybody what a piece of shit I am. And it's since come out that Kelly even offered his little brother, Kerry, $50,000 and a record deal to say that it was him in the video. Yeah. He's not going to give you that, Kerry. No, no. It's not like it was him in the video? Yeah. He's not going to give you that, Kerry. No. No. It's not like it was a DUI.

So Kerry obviously refused and was furious that Kelly would try and pin it on him. Kerry then did an interview with Wendy Williams, speaking out about what he knew, and alleged that Kelly had slept with girls, but again, rephrase, raped girls as young as 12 years old. In the end, however, you've probably already guessed, even if you can't remember, Kelly was acquitted on all counts in the child pornography case and that was because the parents of Roshonda, the girl in the sex tape,

her parents refused to testify. Which again, is just such a difficult thing because obviously, like we were saying, this video is now everywhere. This poor girl's life has not only been destroyed by what he did to her, but the tape going viral, etc. It's a very difficult decision, obviously, for them to have decided not to testify. And obviously, as much as I wish they had, I can understand why they wouldn't want to go through that. Yeah. 15 friends and family members insisted that it was 14-year-old Roshonda in the tape. But her aunt Sparkle thinks that the real reason her parents didn't testify

is that they accepted a payoff from Kelly to stay quiet. And Sparkle was also aware that her brother-in-law still played guitar on a lot of R. Kelly's songs. The jury concluded that they couldn't prove that the girl in the tape was a minor. And in surviving R. Kelly, one of the jurors openly admitted to being prejudiced against the survivors who testified against Kelly in court. He was an elderly white male and he said, I just didn't like the way they dressed and how they acted,

so I ignored everything they said. So many couldn't help but speculate as to whether the same verdict would have been found if the victims had been young white girls. A headline the following day read, six years, 14 charges, one videotape, 12 jurors, seven hours, one verdict, not guilty. So now let's come back to R. Kelly himself. As we have mentioned, he isn't the sharpest tool in the shed, in the tool shed. He's definitely not that. And he actually agreed to do an interview with BET after the trial. What in the Prince Andrew? Like who let

him do that? Yes, quite. And he fumbled on the very first softball opening question, right? You know, in an interview like this, a man who's just come through a controversy like this, they're going to be like, let's just address the elephant in the room and then we can get on to talking about the fun stuff and the interviewer says do you like teenage girls and this was R. Kelly's response. Do you like teenage girls? When you say teenage how are we talking? Girls who are teenagers 19 19 and younger i have some 19 year old friends but i don't like anybody illegal if that's what we're talking about underage uh-huh some people think that you like underage girls what do you say to them well those people those people that don't know robert they don't know me that interviewerer is like, I'm trying to help you. Some people think you like teenage girls.

Some people think you like underage girls. This is your opportunity to say that you don't. And he's just like, how are we talking? Like, what the fuck? Yeah. And obviously, you can just imagine that while this is going on, his crisis manager, R. Kelly's crisis manager was having a fucking meltdown, sweating buckets in the background. And the look of shock, obviously in this famously audio-only podcast, we can't show you the interviewer's face, but please go and watch that clip. We'll

leave a link to it below. His face is priceless. He's looking at him like, are you stupid? What's happening? And then in 2009, Andrea and Kelly's divorce was finalised. And in a way to punish her, Kelly stopped paying her child support, leaving his ex-wife and their three children destitute. Meanwhile, he began a sexual relationship, if we can call it that, which we absolutely can't, because it was with another 14-year-old girl. And where did he meet this 14-year-old? Outside the courtroom of his trial. Somebody help me. I hate it. And her name was Geronda Pace, and she was, in her own words, a quote-unquote superfan. Geronda had actually skipped school and attended Kelly's trial daily as it was open to the public. Geronda got the chance to speak with him as he walked out of court one day. Later, when

Geronda was 16, one of Kelly's team contacted her and invited her to a party at the singer's mansion. Kelly phoned her up and laid out the rules. She was not to tell anyone, even her parents, where she was going and when she spoke to Kelly, she was only to refer to him as Daddy. One of the things Kelly would do to manipulate his victims was to appear to open up to them, telling them about the sexual abuse he'd suffered as a child. Classic grooming there. And in his victims' minds, it created a level of trust, an apparent bond.

Jeronda also opened up to Kelly about the fact that she had been molested at a young age too. Statistically, women who've experienced childhood sexual abuse are more likely to be abused as adults, according to the clinical psychologist Dr Candice Norcott, who features in the docuseries and also, I think, in some of the stuff we did in the book. So when Geronda arrived at Kelly's mansion,

Kelly ordered her to change into a bathing suit and made the 16-year-old strip for him. And when they were about to have sex, Geronda told a thrilled Kelly that she was a virgin. And he responded, that's perfect, I get to train you and take your virginity. So after seeing Kelly for a while, Geronda realised that she wasn't special to him,

that she wasn't his only girl. In fact, there were always a bunch of other young girls in his mansion. And in between interactions with Kelly, her orders were simply to wait on a bed in one of his numerous bedrooms until he gave her the next order. Geronda recalled Kelly coming into the room and explained to her his full set of rules. She was not to communicate with anybody. If she wanted to brush her teeth, she needed to ask permission. If she wanted to eat, she needed to ask permission. And she was absolutely forbidden from speaking to any of the other girls in the mansion. When other men came to visit Kelly,

Geronda was instructed to either put her head down or turn and face the wall. If any of these rules were broken, then there would be serious consequences. And these punishments for disobeying daddy would involve being hit and then starved, sometimes for as long as a week. In court, Geronda said that as a punishment for being on the phone and not acknowledging Kelly when he entered a room,

he, quote, slapped me and he choked me until I passed out. And this was all part of Kelly's strategy. He'd isolate the girls from their family and friends. He'd make them entirely dependent on him and then have them believe that he was the only one in the world who cared about them. This is like classic cult behavior. That's why we said it at the start. This wasn't just like the cult of R. Kelly, like because all these people keep giving him a pass.

No, we mean he literally acted as a cult leader. I don't even really know what a cult is, but I know I don't have one, you know. This kind of depriving people of food, depriving people of freedom, isolating them from their friends and family. Obviously, these are all things that we see in domestic abuse and domestic violence. But this is on like a mass scale, what he was doing. And his methods of manipulation and brainwashing meant that he had complete control over a number of young girls. One of those girls was Dominique Kramer, who Geronda actually introduced to Kelly. She stayed with

him for nine years without speaking to her parents, despite them trying relentlessly to get in touch with her. Kitty Jones stayed with Kelly for two and a half years. Azriel Clary stayed there for three. Essentially as a sex slave, Kelly had promised to help her with her singing career too. Interestingly though, it wasn't all underage girls. At one of his homes, R. Kelly had a 31-year-old den mother whose job it was to train new girls on how to pleasure Kelly. There was a 25-year-old who'd been with him for several years and a number of 19-year-olds.

Kelly referred to these women as his babies and as per the rules he was daddy. They each had assigned rooms in his home and they needed permission to do literally anything. Again it's interesting with Kelly it does seem like he doesn't seem to be a kind of preferential paedophile in that he also goes after older women as well but it just seems like maybe similarly to somebody like a Savile he's quite opportunistic in whoever he also goes after older women as well. But it just seems like maybe similarly to somebody like a Saville, he's quite opportunistic and whoever he can go after, he will. But he has a preference for 14 to 15 year old girls. So just to elaborate on that, clinical psychologists

differentiate between sexual offenders who are primarily attracted to prepubescent children as paedophiles, and those who target early adolescence are actually known as heberphiles. Heberphiles tend to be more situational or opportunistic rather than being as fixated and dedicated as paedophiles are. Heberphiles tend to be attracted to both adults and minors and many have long-term relationships with other adults and it's probably fair to say that Kelly would fit into this particular camp, having been involved with adult women alongside his victimization of underage girls. And coming back to the house of horrors, there's the mansion where he's got all of these

women and girls locked up in. Kelly didn't do this all on his own. He had a team of people on his payroll, keeping an eye on his babies when he was away to ensure that they didn't break the rules. Again, this is what makes it very cult-like because you have that hierarchy. You have the like foot soldiers who sit below Kelly who are there to enforce his rules. And he'd even apparently make his like victims wear joggers or baggy clothes so that they didn't look appealing to other men. Again, you don't need us to tell you this is all the classic signs of incredible control. Now the families of these girls and women filed missing persons reports and had the police check

on their welfare. But when police arrived, the girls would just tell the officers that they were fine and that they were at Kelly's house of their own free will. So, for some reason, they just took their word for it and nothing ever came out. And this is probably because the legal age of consent in Chicago was 17, although we know that he had girls like Geronda there from when they were 16. Then came the BuzzFeed article that changed everything.

And that came along in 2017, putting R. Kelly right back in the spotlight. The article detailed how six girls had been trapped in Kelly's sex cult. It included allegations from the parents of the missing girls. After the bombshell article was published, Jeronda Pace broke her non-disclosure agreement and spoke out about how Kelly had raped her when she was underage. A number of other women came forward too, to speak out about the abuse they'd faced at the hands of the Pied Piper of R&B. These new sexual abuse allegations in 2017 caught the attention of Atlanta Arts Administrator, Orinike Odileye.

The 38-year-old had been hearing about R. Kelly's sexual abuse of young black women since she was a teenager and decided that she was going to do something about it. So she launched the hashtag Mute R. Kelly campaign, which lobbied his record label RCA and targeted music promoters, ticket sellers and streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music to remove the singer from the public eye. The two streaming platforms removed Kelly's songs from their playlists temporarily. But despite the campaign organising huge protests outside venues, R. Kelly continued to perform at packed out live shows. During this time, a number of other women

who had previously been in Kelly's cult sued him for intentionally giving them herpes. And then another troubling video emerged. And this time it wasn't another sex tape with minors. No, no. This time it showed R. Kelly standing what I'm saying? It's too late. They should have did this shit 30 years ago. It's too late. True. The music has been injected into the world.

Okay? But this time, he was wrong. Things went from bad to worse when the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly came out in 2019. You can watch it on 4OD in the UK. It's absolutely bananas. It's absolutely bananas. It's fucking insane. And there's actually a second season. You've probably heard about it, but if you don't know what Surviving R. Kelly is, it's a compilation of interviews with Kelly's victims, their families and people who worked with him. And the stories just get more and more wild.

The truth was now in everybody's face and it couldn't be ignored in the same way people had chosen to ignore the first sex tape and the Aaliyah situation all those years ago. Just two weeks after Surviving R. Kelly aired, his record label finally dropped the 51-year-old and his upcoming concerts in the US and New Zealand were cancelled. In February 2019, another videotape of Kelly having sex with a 14-year-old girl surfaced, and he was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in Chicago. The following month, Kelly gave his now infamous and unhinged interview with Gayle King, during which he had a complete meltdown. He cries, he screams, he denies everything, and he tries extremely hard to play the victim.

Quit playing. I didn't do this stuff. he screams, he denies everything, and he'all trying to kill me you're killing me man this ain't it's not about music I'm trying to have a relationship with my kids and I can't do it I need help what kind of help this is the kind of help I need I need somebody to help me

not have a big heart because my heart is so big. People betray me and I keep forgiving them. You sound like you're playing the victim here. Fucking hell. That's so gross. That is just hideous. It's hideous. this fucking shambolic show, prosecutors then slapped R. Kelly with another 11 charges of sexual assault and abuse against a minor aged between 13 and 16. One of the charges was for

having sex and oral sex with a minor, once again, rape and oral rape. And they added in by use of force or threat of force. A few months after this, Kelly was hit with two separate federal indictments in Illinois and Brooklyn. All of the allegations and charges painted a picture of a sinister organized effort by Kelly and his team to recruit and traffic underage black girls over state lines for illegal sex, so for rape. They also exposed the production of child sex abuse images. So again, this is what we're talking about with R. Kelly. He doesn't even just do it, as if that wouldn't be bad enough, for his own perversions and his own, what did they say, proclivities.

He's like taking it to an industrial scale, where he is sex trafficking and being a producer of sexually explicit images of children. So fortunately, this time round, the judge denied Kelly Bale, citing him as a serious flight risk. And just a few days later, prosecutors in Minnesota filed prostitution charges against him too. This meant that he was now facing criminal cases in three US states. But still, he just kept on pleading not guilty. In August 2020, three members of R. Kelly's team were charged with attempting to intimidate, harass, or pay off some of his victims. One of them was offered half a million dollars for her silence, but she refused. Another was threatened with the release of sexually explicit photos of her

if she testified. And a third woman woke up to find her car had been set on fire in her driveway. So it was obvious that R. Kelly no longer felt untouchable. He was scared, and he should have been. On the 26th of August, while sleeping on the bottom bunk of his cell in Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center, R. Kelly woke up to find Jeremiah Shane Farmer standing over him.

Farmer's a member of the Latin Kings gang and has a face covered in tattoos, including two teardrops commemorating a double homicide in which he murdered two men using a sledgehammer in 1999. Farmer beat the living shit out of R. Kelly. He stomped on his head repeatedly until guards decided to step in and pepper spray him. Kelly's team tried to use this assault to have him released

as a concern for his safety, but the judge denied bail. Usually if you complain, you're just put in solitary, which is way worse. Yeah, and again, it's like that's not a basis for him to be released. Move him somewhere else then. The prison has to take responsibility for keeping inmates safe. You can't just release someone like R. Kelly out on bail because of that. Yeah, exactly.

So in the final pretrial hearing in August 2021, guys, we have been on a fucking decades-long mission on this episode. An odyssey. A musical odyssey. So, yes, we are in August 2021 at fucking last and the judge asked one of Kelly's lawyers whether they denied that he had had sex with Aaliyah when she was 15 years old.

And his lawyer responded by letting out a deep sigh and saying no. There's nothing that makes you sound more convincing than a sigh. Then when someone asks you a question, you're like, not this again. And then finally, despite his sighing lawyer, on the 27th of November 2021, R. Kelly was finally found guilty in New York on eight counts of sex trafficking and one count of racketeering. Kelly was actually scheduled to be sentenced earlier this month, so that is May 2022, but it's been delayed until

August. So R. Kelly could be facing decades behind bars, especially when you take into account the fact that at the time of this recording, there are still two more trials to go for cases against him in Chicago and Minnesota. Gloria Alred, a lawyer who represented several of the victims at the New York trial, said, quote, Yep. women and children of all of the predators that I have pursued Mr Kelly is the worst yep and I think the bit about the mansion and keeping the girls locked up in individual rooms I think that's the bit that until I watched surviving R Kelly I didn't know no I didn't know that either and you know there's always that phrase that people say you know you don't need chains and doors and locks to keep people trapped you don't but he did

but he did he did that and the fucking rest so yeah r kelly really really truly is incredibly despicable i think the big difference because when we were doing the research for this one of the things that you know it's hard to ignore any comparisons with jimmy saville for example obviously two men who were incredibly famous during their time in the spotlight, who really were very untouchable in many ways. And Savile, obviously, everything only came out after he died in the public sphere. Obviously, everybody knew what he'd been doing. But there is a marked difference, I think, because Savile, he sort of was very intelligent in how he did it. He positioned himself in places of power. He made influential

friends. He built his network that would enable him to be a predator. As far as I remember of Savile, he didn't employ people on his payroll to facilitate it. No. So you're right. And that's exactly what I was going to say. There is a marked difference. The difference between Savile and Kelly, in my opinion, is, as you said, Kelly wasn't very smart. He couldn't do it on his own. Jimmy Savile was hyper intelligent. And although I don't believe for a second there was no one who held the door open for him, I think it's what you said, he put himself in positions of power. So it would be impossible for people to say no to him. R. Kelly just paid people a lot of fucking money. Exactly. And, you know, obviously, when you watch you watch surviving r kelly they interview people

like his security team and people who were a part of this kind of industrialized sexual abuse that he was perpetrating and they kind of just have the vibe of i was just following orders and kind of the vibe of well if it wasn't me doing it someone else would have done it and they'd have got paid instead oh no as in I might as well take the money. He was going to do it anyway. Who was going to stop this man? So, yeah, obviously, we absolutely recommend you checking out Surviving R. Kelly. It is a tough watch and it is long, but it is very, very well made.

And those women who talk up in that series, my God, it is very, very difficult to listen to. And they were ignored for far too long. So go give them some of your time. Watch the docuseries. And yeah, that is it, guys. There you go. That's R. Kelly. That is R. Kelly.

I'm not going to say I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to say I hope you learned. And we will be back with something else. But before we leave you, we actually have to do something that we haven't done in a very long time. have some patreon supporters to read out we have changed the rules it's now 20 and up if you want to shout out on the show so here are some people who are being amazing and supporting us on patreon and if you want to do that too you can go to patreon.com

forward slash red-handed to help us out so here we go. Chantal Hand, Holly Stevenson, Cara, Chi, Grace Francis, Hazel McHugh, Joanne Donnelly, Antoinette, Klatcher, I'm very hungry, Chloe Lee, Robin Whittle, Laura Wallace, Trinity Otnes, Janet, don't read my name, Isabel Wilson, Sandy, poor silly, Anna, Professor Sharky Lasers,

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Mei Ying, Corey Johnson, Thomas S., Jessica Johnson, Maggie Mann, Carly Lightfoot, Rawdin Dustin, Lipscomb, Maya Issa, Tessa Grindelder-Graf, Zoe Galinas, Erica Mayija, Mayija, sorry, Caroline or Carolyn Carlisle, Julie Pinney, Abby Foglietta Caitlin Hayes

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Victoria Sisu David Gourley Ellen Holiday Holly Lucy Raskelly Nadia Barnadav Thank you ever so much for listening.

We love you and we'll see you next time with another story that's hopefully less child rapy than this one. Fingers crossed. Bye. Bye. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up.

But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace,

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