Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 352 - R. Kelly's Sex Cult

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

Did R. Kelly truly have a sex cult?  For around a quarter-of-a-century Robert Sylvester Kelly wrote hit after hit after hit, becoming one of the most successful musical artists in American history. But also, the whole time it seems, he preyed viciously on young women and girls. He brainwashed them, physically abused them,  psychologically abused them, and videotaped himself sexually abusing them in a variety of degrading ways. And he did all of that openly. Why did it take so long for him to be taken down? Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp tickets are ON SALE!  BadMagicMerch.com Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/N9beyV4FfzgBad Magic Charity of the Month: Over the years, we have tried to donate back to our local community here in Coeur D Alene. This month, we have decided that in honor of Pride month, we are going to donate locally to the North Idaho Pride Alliance whose mission is to connect LGBTQIA+ people and allies to various community groups so they may create a more inclusive North Idaho through Networking, Educating and Advocating. To find out more, you can visit nipridealliance.comMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits

Robert Sylvester Kelly, or as you probably know him, are Kelly. That is who we're talking about today. If you were live in the 90s or the first two decades of this entry, you almost certainly have heard his music many, many times. With such hits as 1994's Bump and Grind, 1995's You Remind Me of Something and 1998's I'm Your Angel, Kelly had more songs, reached the top 40 of the Billboard singles chart than any other male solo artist of the 90s. The popularity of the latter song, a duet with Celine Dion, contributed to the success

of the 1998 album R, which sold more than 8 million copies in the US alone. That album also featured the smash hit I believe I can fly. First featured in Space Jam, it would go on to be featured in countless other movies and TV shows. Millions of copies of the single would be sold around the world. 2005's Trapped in the Closet, chapters 1 through 12 also sold several million copies in the US and was heralded by critics. For much the 90's and 2000's, Arkelli's public persona was synonymous with the themes

that would return again and again in his music. Sexuality and religion, the profane and the divine. He was both the sinner who left the club in the early hours of the morning and the gospel singer who appeared at church hours later. Sure he was a ladies man who unabashedly professed his lust, but also he was a God fearing ladies man. And for many, that somehow made him okay.

But as time went on, he got harder and harder for fans to rationalize supporting him. Arkelli's name is Longbin, synonymous with controversy. This began with rumors swirling around that he had secretly married the singer Aliyah back in 1994 when she was 15 and he was 27. And those rumors were actually true. They had married, even though Arkelli and Aliyah insisted that they were merely close friends

for years. But there were a lot of hints regarding the true nature of their relationship from the beginning, like when Arkelli wrote and produced Alia's debut album titled, and this is so cringey now, age ain't nothing but a number. That phrase seemed to be Arkelli's motto. Words he lived by. Arkelli's sexual proclivities receive more national publicity when the authorities came into possession of a videotape, first given to the Chicago Sun Times by an anonymous source

that allegedly showed Kelly having sex with another underage girl as well as pissing on her. He was soon indicted on multiple charges related to child pornography, but then that trial will be delayed for several years. He would ultimately be found innocent and thanks to that in a culture that preferred to laugh about the so-called p-tap, turn more comedic than tragic in part thanks to a very popular Chappelle show skit, instead of being condemned for statutory rape and sexual degradation, he moved ahead, unimpeded, onto the last phase of his controversial, free life, leading an actual sex cult. Or at least that's what's been called by many. In 2017 Buzzfeed news published interviews with former

employees of Kelly, as well as two families that said that their daughters were essentially trapped in our Kelly's various properties. Brainwashed and beaten down, living by his strict rules, they dressed how he wanted them to dress. They asked for permission to do everything from eat to go to the bathroom. They always referred to him as daddy only referred to him as daddy while providing him whatever raunchy and or degrading sex he wanted on demand or they would be beaten for refusing his demands. Some of these women, many of them teenagers when they first met the singer would still insist after all that they loved our Kelly.

When allegations about what happened to them became public that he protected them, nurtured their musical talents and that the rest of the world simply just didn't understand their relationship because the world was jealous. So what was the truth was our Kelly actually running a sex cult as the media alleged was his arrest and imprisonment as our Kelly alleged the culmination of decades of some kind of witch hunter public lynching by disgruntled enemies a racist culture that just couldn't stand to see him succeed wanted to take him down. Or was his arrest and imprisonment long overdue. A deep dive into the world of Arkelly's music and the dark side of his celebrity.

On today's cult, cult, cult, too much bumping grind're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, I made Sacks and welcome to the Cult of the Curious. Welcome to the 350 second straight week of the Suck. I know I said it was the 450 first week last week. I was a weird episode numbering system internally, but I probably shouldn't. And sometimes confuse myself. So I just added 100 episodes that we've never done.

I'm Dan Cummins, a master sucker, guy who was never really a big R Kelly fan. Certainly won't become one now, and you are listening to Time Suck. Hail Nimrod, Pondasisher Kelly, Lucifena, Praise Bojangles and Triple M. I hope no similar scandal ever comes out about you. If it does, a lot of people are gonna be very fucking surprised.

Surprise you can pull it off. Surprise. Surprise on so many levels. The Bad Magic charity this month in honor of Pride Month is the North Idaho Pride Alliance, whose mission it is to connect LGBTQIA plus people and allies to various community groups, so that they may create a more inclusive North Idaho through

networking, educating, and advocating. We need education around here in this regard. Recording in advance, and don't have the donation amount right now, if you want to learn more about North Idaho Pride Alliance, you can visit their website and iPrideAlliance.com. Now for a real quick up, quick up, quick fuck up. There you go. Merch announcements before we get into the story. Introducing the TimeSuck Family Reunion T from Mount St. Helens Lodge. This fun T features a classic family reunion style layout which includes the Lodge, Mountain pre-explosion, of course, and a jovial yet ominous sign reading is gonna be a blast. Head on over to badmagicmourts.com.

Grab your Mount St. Helens time, so family reunion T today, and actually do have one more thing. Regarding some information I gave last week in the pizza bomber suck. At one point early on, talking about Marjorie's parents, I said they would both live to see her get arrested for crimes related to the pizza bombing heist.

And that was not true as I pointed out later in the episode because her mom died in 2000, a couple years before the pizza heist went down. And because I obsessed over this stuff, I literally woke up in the middle of the night thinking why did I say that? Right? Like I pointed out the correct information later,

but I never clarified that I fucked up earlier and that was bugging me. And now I feel better. I care about accuracy. And I care about making sure you know that Arkelli, not a good dude, on so many levels, one of the worst fucking pedophiles that we have ever covered here on TimeSuck. And now on to his story. I mentioned up top that in 2017, Arkelli was accused of running a sex cult by some of

the parents of the women who lived at his various properties. They would say that their daughters had either gone to a concert to meet our Kelly or met him somewhere out in public, a bodyguard typically would secretly slip his phone number to them. Then these daughters and Kelly would start communicating frequently and usually privately. The parents stated when they found out who their daughters were talking to, they hoped that they were just communicating about music. Many of these young women were aspiring singers with big dreams of becoming stars themselves. Some of the parents very excited for their daughters.

But then things secretly unbeknownst to the parents usually at first would turn sexual. Our Kelly turned out had no interest in furthering their careers, as he would often claim, he just wanted them sexually. Soon the girls would be sneaking out to meet Kelly, going on trips with them, then they would disappear entirely only communicating with their parents now in cryptic text messages. And they did this, they said later,

because our Kelly limited their communication with the outside world, punishing them, sometimes pretty severely, if they so much as even looked at another man when they were out of the house, let alone, you know, communicating with people they weren't supposed to communicate with. Inside his houses, Kelly controlled their lives completely, dictating what they wore, what they did, what they ate,

how much they ate, when they got to go to the bathroom, they had asked permission for that. You know, he controlled how they referred to him only as daddy, and of course, he directed their sex lives and beat them when they disobeyed. And all that certainly does sound like some sort of sex cult. And a sex cult makes sense if you look at Arkelli's history before the sex cult allegations. Beginning with his secret marriage to 15 year old Aliyah, through many lawsuits by young women claiming that Arkelli sexually abused them, Arkelli seemed to have had a problem when it came to teenage underage girls,

you know, ever since he was no longer underage himself. And yet, until the sex cult revelations and being charged with federal crimes just a few years ago, years, during years of so many allegations, none of those seemed to have much of an impact on his career. And why was that? Well, there's a lot of reasons probably. Speculating here, but speculation, I feel pretty confident about. I think one reason is that though his music was sexual,

he always seemed to have another side to him, a soulful religious side. He was a man who openly claimed to believe in God, a man who talked about his struggles with that belief, like so many people do, a man who talked about his struggles with that belief, like so many people do, a man who claimed to, you know, long to be spiritually reunited with his mom, Joanne, who died when his career was just to be, you know, getting started. This hope was encapsulated in the song, I wish, in the video for I wish, Arkely stands at top of Chicago High Rise, overlooking the dramatic skyline in the city. He calls the center of my universe.

He gazes up at the crisp blue sky. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? asks a disembodied woman's voice. I want out. Kelly replies removing his shades, but it's hard. I need answers, mama. He turns his back. I need answers. Right? That seems like a good dude. Doing that. I wish as an nostalgic tribute to both his late mother and the Southside neighborhoods where he grew up where she helped raise him as well as a bittersweet contemplation of his faith in the burdens of fame.

Now you hear my songs, the radio is banging, oh, I can't believe my ears. And what everybody's saying, boy, I'll tell you folks don't know the half. He also sings. This 2000 video also portrays Kelly surrounded by friends and family on the wooden porch of a small stucco house near West 107th Street in South Parnell Avenue, one of two homes he lived in as a child. A 20 year old female extra lovingly braids his hair, right? A touching scene, a good, soulful man.

But then eight years later, that same woman in that video would testify that during a break in filming of that video She had a three-son with Kelly and an underage girl in his fucking trailer, right? R Kelly's public persona and the private real man. Wow. They had very little in common More and more rumors of sexual escapades like this made their way out to the general public and many of his fans didn't flinch Didn't believe it R Kelly's persona was hypersexual, sure, but it wasn't only about sex.

Gosh dang, everybody, he's a good Christian man as well. His religious devotion seemed to make many more apt to forgive him for his indiscretions. He would say himself that he was struggling with his demons, trying to conquer his problems. Another reason these allegations never seemed to have had a big impact on his career for so many years was that they came from admittedly ambitious young women who openly wanted to

be singers, who greatly admired our Kelly's career. In other words, these young women were amongst other things a type of groupie. And what is a groupie? Well the term groupie is a slang word that refers to a fan of a particular musician or group in this setting who follows the band around while they are on tour or who attends as many of their public appearances as possible with the hopes of meeting them. The term is usually derogatory, describing primarily young women who follow these individuals aiming to initiate a sexual encounter, to offer them sex, often in the hopes of getting

something in return that can only come from somebody wealthy, famous, or both. They want to get a big jump start in their careers. So ambitious here could also be viewed as conniving. The word groupie originated around 1965. Some sources have attributed the coin of the word to the Rolling Stones basis, Bill Wyman, during the group's 1965 Australian tour. Wyman said he and his bandmates used other code words for women on tour. Oh Bill.

More about him much later. He liked him young too. Real young. Too young. A prominent explanation of the group he concept came from Rolling Stone magazine which published an issue in February of 1969 devoted to the topic, Groupies, the Girls of Rock, which emphasized the sexual behavior of rock musicians and groupies. One part of the article reads, The basic distinction between yesterday's hysterical fans and today's groupies is that the groupies, also known as rock gaysias, usually managed to fulfill their erotic fantasies. Says Anna, few groupies used the last name, perhaps out of kindness to their families,

a pretty 25 year old San Francisco. A girl is a groupie only if she has numerous relationships. A groupie will maybe sleep with three people all in one night from one group, from the equipment man to whoever is the most important. Though everyone on the rock scene is aware of the groupie phenomenon, it is next to impossible to know how many there are,

mainly because rock stars like most young men tend to brag about their conquests. They come says Frank Zappa from any home that has contact with rock and roll and with radio and records. That's everybody. Zappa contends that there are thousands of them ranging in age all the way from 50, although they have to look damn good at that age to get any action. He says down to 10 10 My god Zappa that is beyond disturbing Hope he wasn't talking about his personal experience there The article continues their appeal is obvious says the bear a 280 pounds singer and harmonica player for a Los Angeles group called can't heat I've got an old lady now, so I don't mess around when I'm in LA when I'm on the road is different

I mean here are these chicks patting around I'm on the road, it's different. I mean, here are these chicks patting around the hotel quarters after you and it's great. From this article, and there are so many others, and a ton of autobiographies written by famous musicians who have been very candid when talking about having no problem engaged in sexual relations with teens, sometimes very young teens, it's clear that groupism has been an accepted phenomenon for a long time. And for a long time, there was a commonly accepted belief that rock stars should not be held accountable for their interactions with groupies because there was no reason why they shouldn't take sex that's on offer. Even when it came from underage girls.

Indeed, the article portrays the relationship of groupies and rock stars as a somewhat symbiotic relationship. They give the rock star star sex, and then they get the pleasure of having gotten that conquest. Songs are written for them, and about them. They act as critics and even co-composers. It's all one big ego trip, gushes super-groupy Cleo, a strawberry blonde 18-year-old New Yorker who is a lookalike for Jane Fonda, the article ads. In fact, many groups became somewhat famous themselves. Connie Hamsey, also known as. In fact, many groupies became somewhat famous themselves. Connie Hamsey, also known as Sweet Connie,

a prominent groupie in the 1960s, argued in favor of the groupie movement and defended her chosen lifestyle by saying, look, we're not hookers, we love the glamor. Some groupies will go into write books, profiting off their chosen hobby. Debar, who is a groupie for dozens of musicians, from Jim Morrison to Mick Jagger,

wrote two books detailing her experiences as a groupie. I'm with the band in 1997 and taken out a little piece of my heart, a groupie grows up in 1993. Books like these, if you have ingredients to a cultural view, the groupies are not victims. They also have something significant to gain from their relationship with stars, making them the somewhat predatory ones. But even in 1969, there were downsides to being a groupie as the article put it,

for every such success story, groupie life has presented scores of tragedies, made worse by the preoccupation with sex and dope that is integral to rock culture. Typical enough is the bitter story of a Manhattan waitress says, I'm 33 and I've made it with all these early biggies and more. You know what I've got to show for it? Three kids from three different guys, which three, I'm 33 and I've made it with all these early biggies and more. You know what I've got to show for it?

Three kids from three different guys, which three I'm not sure. I've gone the dope route, been busted twice and taken the cure at Lexington, Kentucky. And of course to those who aren't groupies, to young women who like an artist and go to his concerts, but aren't angling for sex or career advancement specifically, their sexual relationships with stars run the risk of being labeled groupie star relationships leading to the perception that they should have known what they were getting into. I think this perception, this tradition really went a long way towards allowing R. Kelly to continue experiencing increasing career success and very little public backlash when many

people knew he was fucking teen fans left and right. From the beginning of the public's knowledge about Rkelli's impropriety with young girls, media outlets called attention to the fact the musician sleep with young girls was nothing new. In the article by the Chicago Sun Times that first broke the story of the first public Arkelli tape in 2001, the newspaper insisted that the writers include the following paragraph,

seemingly downplaying Arkelli's actions because of how frequently male musicians quote, fool around with underage girls. It said, Kelly is hardly the first celebrity to be accused of taking advantage of underage girls. Gary Glitter, Rob Lowe, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roman Polanski, Rolling Stone, Bill Wyman, and even the legendary Arrow Flynn all have been written about in this paper and others for allegedly having trists with minors. What a strange thing they did there. Right, just to give a cultural pass to behavior normally judged pretty harshly, right?

If you're a grown-ass man, do not fuck underage girls. Unless you're famous. In that case, get your dick wet. Get out there and enjoy the perks of stardom. Ah, she's not being molested. She's being given one of the best stories of her life. Something to feel good about when times are tough. You're doing her a favor.

You know, sure, it might be hard now, raising three kids as a single mom and waitress, but 16 years ago when I was 15, all the guys in Motley crew, and I think a few of their rotees ran a train on me after snorting some coke off my asshole. What a night! Worth it.

The young women who slept with Arkelly and later accused him of abusive and criminal acts would until the second half of the 2010s mostly just be written off as groupies. Just like the ones who followed so many other artists But should they have been written off? When you really look at what happened to these girls It's easy to see that what was going on with Arkelly was not typical groupie shit Not that that shit is okay, but this was worse. Not only were the vast majority of these girls underage, there were also girls who had dreams of becoming singers and songwriters,

girls who had little sexual experience and who live mosty sheltered lives in many cases. There were girls who would be abused in ways very atypical compared to the average groupie treatment. Many of the people around Arkelli who would later come forward, as well as the parents of these young women described R Kelly as not to sleep with these girls would have truly abusing them physically sexually, psychologically, brainwashing them. Speaking of people around R Kelly while we will focus on R Kelly's crimes throughout this timeline, it's important to remember that there was no fucking way he could have done all this on his own. He needed help, a lot of help to abuse so many girls for such a long period of time, and he got it. A lot of people seem to have no problem with what he was doing, as long as the checks he was given them just kept caching.

At the complex machine of celebrity, people protecting their own stake in the R Kelly business, work to conceal his true nature at every turn. And that machine allowed this predatory mother fucker to do what he did for a lot longer to a lot more girls and women than he would have been able to have hurt had he not been wildly famous and wealthy. The number of people who knew about Arkelli's crimes and either let them happen or actively concealed them is probably in the hundreds if not thousands. How disturbing is that? Among them are the employees of record labels, the owners of record labels, employees and over

owners of various recording studios, independent publicity firms, lawyers, concert promoters, music venues, rehearsal studios, radio stations, video outlets, magazines, websites, newspapers, on and on and on. Many of these people are on his personal payroll, right? Musicians, DJs, personal assistance, lawyers, accounts, spokespeople, tour managers, roadies, drivers, security guards, and more.

And then there were the workers at Kelly's favorite hotels, restaurants, high-end gyms, nightclubs, the artists he produced, wrote for and recorded with, as well as the directors of his videos, and many members of their crews. For many of these people, they decided at some point that ruining the lives of young women was worth a paycheck or getting to watch or just allowing Arkelli to ruin the lives young one. It was worth a paycheck or was worth their reputation. All right, their ability to simply be by Arkelli's side and enjoy a taste of his celebrity

and the good life just made it worth it. To untangle this machine, we're going to need to start at the beginning. Let's do exactly that right now in our time-suck timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-suck timeline. According to his birth certificate, Robert Sylvester Kelly was born in Chicago, Illinois, January 8, 1967. His mother, Joanne, was 19. She was from West Memphis, Arkansas, and it moved to Chicago as a part of the Great Migration. We've talked about that in numerous episodes.

When millions of black Americans moved to the Northeast, Midwest, and the West Coast in search of greater opportunities, Chicago was a popular destination. It was 2% black in the early 1900s, but by 1970 the number climbed to 33%. Many black Americans relocated to the south and west sides. It's neighborhoods like Bronzeville, Pullman, and Austin. There they formed neighborhoods characterized by poor housing stock and fewer retail businesses but rich with music venues and churches. Before Robert Joanna had given birth twice to an older half sister and an older half brother, Teresa and Bruce.

When it was Robert's turn, she gave birth at the no longer there, Chicago line-in hospital. Part of the University of Chicago's healthcare system in the neighborhood of Hyde Park. No father's name was listed on his birth certificate. Eventually she'd have another son, Carrie, and all four kids would have different fathers. Robert's early life was not the worst, but it was chaotic at times. Sometimes

Robert and his half-siblings lived near or with his maternal grandma, four uncles, female cousins, and aunties, and a man named Lucius, who married Joanne and became the stepfather to her four children around the time Robert turned five. So a lot of family around, a lot of people coming in and out of the house. Robert said to have presented anyone else vying for his mom Joanne's attention and he disapproved of her marriage to Lucius. But he admits in his autobiography,

Solar Coaster, the diary of me, that Lucius was a nice man, nice to me, and most times nice to my mother. A word about Solar Coaster, which came out in 2012, written by Arkelli and celebrity biographer, David Ritz. We'll use it here as source material to explain that, you know, how Robert thought about his life and childhood, but it is by no means an unbiased source.

A book about Arkelli's crimes, Solis, the case against Arkelli by Jim Derogatis, which came from years of research and long conversations with members of the family, points out that solar coaster is woefully short on real or full names and specific dates and addresses. The book gets some of those it does mention wrong, citing the corners of streets that do not intersect, referring to buildings that never existed, even dispelling the name of Kelly's younger half brother throughout the book. Ritz views his role as conveying what his subjects want readers to know and not perhaps what they should know. Okay, now back to our Kelly's early life. Whenever

he asked about his own father, Kelly says in solar coaster, my mother would just roll her eyes. Look away from me and say, don't say nothing to me about that no good son of a bitch because the minute he found out I was pregnant with you, his coward asked left, disappeared in the wind Describing his mom is a beautiful heavy set woman with flawless brown skin brown eyes thick eyebrows Robert notes that she was strong in her faith a praying woman who looked to God for a better way He was a child Robert and Joanne would go to McDonald's Almost every every morning

He would remember in particular that when she drank from her coffee cup, she'd leave a ring of lipstick, and when Robert had a sip, he would taste lipstick and copy the same time. And this was somehow arousing or something because solar coasters very next line is, if I could, I would have married my mom. And, you know, that's maybe a little weird, but not that unusual, actually. A lot of little kids go through a phase when they want to marry a parent.

He also admits that she had her bad habits. She loved her Winston cigarettes and her Miller beer. Miller was pretty good beer. Sometimes she drink too much and gets sick, he says. He also went into several physical fights between his mom and stepfather, mostly when they drank. His younger brother, Carrie would later say to interviewers that Lucius, who worked for an airline certainly had his flaws but

also worked hard to provide for the family. Joanne worked at the Rosalind Community Hospital in Southside neighborhood. She was an EKG technician and a phobautomist, someone who takes blood. During Robert's early years they lived in the Parkway Garden Housing Project at East 63rd Street in South Martin Luther King Drive. A 2014 Sun Time series would call it the most dangerous block in Chicago with 19 unsolved shootings in three years. But in the late 60s and early 70s, when Kelly grew up there, it was actually among the city's safest low income housing communities.

Around five years old, he became seriously interested in music. His mom, Constie played Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Donnie Hathaway around the house because it's episode, I'll listen to a ton of Hathaway the past few days at my house. And her love of music would rub off on her son. He'd even get his mom to take him to a real music venue, a bonafide lounge. At age five, Robert later claimed he was smuggled inside of a lounge

or inside a lounge hidden in a drum case, which how much fun would that be for little fella. He would recall being overwhelmed by clouds of smoke swells the laughter. Women's sweet perfumes, the strong smell of cigars and the stink of whiskey, but his mother's performance that night made the biggest impact. He said she was tearing the roof off that little club and me. Well, I was cherishing every minute. The joy of music was the joy of my mother.

But that was Saturday night. Come Sunday morning, the musical performance would change venues from the club to the church. And Joanne would belt out amazing grace at services. Young Robert was in awe, a certain blueprint for his later public persona was being laid down for him. Two years later in July of 1974, when Robert was just seven, something tragic would happen. At least that is what he claims in his autobiography. He said he had a friend named Lulu, and one day he and Lulu stood across Concord Drive from Beacon Hill Elementary School, near the banks of then-rain swollen Thorn Creek. Some older kids came up to them and started messing around and Lulu fell into the rushing

water. And the current quickly carried her away. Robert said, I didn't know how to swim and neither did she. The other kids were running away and she was screaming. After it felt like forever some grown-ups arrived, I explained what had happened and followed them downstream until they came upon a big rock. There was Lulu, her head crushed against the rock. She wasn't talking, wasn't moving, but there was a lot of blood coming from her head.

Death couldn't be this real. As fake as a sounds, a third-grader named named Luela Simkins did die in Thorne Creek in July of 1974 according to public records. But she didn't die from her head being bashed into a rock. She died from drowning. So maybe took a little artistic license there. And who knows if they were actually friends? I you'll see why later I have a lot of problems with his memories is being honest. What we do have a lot of problems with his His memories is being honest What we do know is that Robert's problems with bullies did not stop there his older half brother Bruce and neighborhood kids did constantly pick on him For being shy introspective and not classically masculine according to various sources

Friend of the family would later remember that Joanne couldn't leave little Robert alone in a room with other kids He cried too easily which made him even more of a target also target because he He didn't seem to be able to read as well as, you know, or as quickly as other kids and later it was thought he had some kind of dyslexia. Couldn't do basic addition either. Robert tried to hide his struggles from classmates and teachers while Joanne patiently worked with him at night, trying to tutor him, always encouraging him. She built up a self-esteem, fostered the belief that he had been blessed, maybe not with talent

school, but with some other kind of talent. She made him believe that. Around Robert's eighth birthday, Joanne moved the family to a home in East Fortyth Street and South Martin Luther King Drive, in the Grand Boulevard neighborhood of Chicago. It was a bustling street for the barbershops, nail salons, boutiques, record stores, fried chicken and shrimp joints, storefront churches and corner groceries. Robert and his half-brothers frequented the Metropolitan Theater at 46 and King, a historic Vodville Palace Turn movie theater to watch Bruce Lee films like Fist of Furrier, Into

the Dragon. It was a neighborhood full of big backyard barbecues and day long church picnic sponsored by tight-knit congregations that would come together to pay medical bills or rent when a member needed a little extra help. There was music everywhere blues and gospel house and hip-hop deep cut soul and R&B tracks Sounds pretty fucking awesome But things were far from perfect Chicago historian Dominic Pasiga has estimated that during our Kelly's formative years in Roberts neighborhood single mothers headed 70% of all households, with children under 18, and the unemployment rate approached 32% far overshadowing the

national rate of 6%. There was also a more immediate source of discomfort in Kelly's house. At least, this is what Robert would claim later. Before I share what that was, it feels like a decent spot for today's sponsor break. Thanks for taking a round. Now let's hear about some incidents that some will point to as an excuse for our Kelly's later sexual troubles. There were always women in our little house at 40th King Kelly says in Solacoaster, cousins, aunties, friends of my aunties, all older women. When my mother wasn't home, the women ran a little freer.

You could see through their blouses. Sometimes they wore bras, sometimes they didn't. When they walked around a nightgowns or pajamas, you could see their panties. And on a few occasions, like on a very hot summer day, they wouldn't even wear panties. As I crept up an age and made my way through grammar school, I found myself more curious and sometimes aroused. And I was ashamed of being aroused, growing up with that shame has haunted me throughout my life. You know, for a guy so sensitive to sexual shame, he sure had no problem being the source

of fucking immense sexual shame for others that he dealt out. On one winter afternoon, when he came home early from school, Kelly claims to have walked in on a couple having sex and he said the woman told him, you can watch, but you better not say shit to nobody about this. And that is creepy as fuck. And I'm open to believing this, like I'm open to believing, you know, any allegation, but our Kelly is a proven liar. He has for sure lied so fucking much about so many of the details of his private life regarding all the sexual abuse he has committed over and over.

He has lied to this day. So did this happen? I'd be more open to believe it if he walked in on this woman, master baby, but he walked in on her having sex with some random dude. So this woman and this guy, when a kid comes home from school, both suddenly are cool, letting him watch them fuck

I Don't know I doubt it. Maybe it happened. I certainly was not there But I doubt it another time Robert said the same thing happened and now the couple directed him to take some photos with the Polaroid camera On yet another evening after young Robert fell asleep watching TV on the couch. He claims another woman 10 years his senior woke him up by sucking his dick. He said he was eight years old. She also threatened him, you know, to not tell you better not say shit to no one or else you're going to get a terrible whoopin. He says she said and then he didn't tell anybody. He knew the neighborhood well enough to know that snitches were not tolerated is what he wrote in his book. Robert

would claim that the sexual contact moved on to intercourse and continue for about six years. So who was it that did this to him? In 2019, in two podcasts and YouTube interviews, as well as in an interview with Jim DeRogasis, his half-brother Carrie named their half-sister Teresa as both his own and Robert's abuser. Teresa is the cause of everything happening the way it did Carrie would say. And then Teresa never publicly responded to these allegations. Is that true? Super fucked up if it is. But it also seems to be a story that our Kelly's

various management teams have promoted over time, including Don Russell, who said he was hypersexual, not because he chose to be, but because of a sister, right? Like he's the victim. That is a convenient story for someone with the PR crisis on their hands, which he had when that statement was made. Also, I've watched several interviews with women. Arkelli was found guilty in court of sexually abusing, and some of them initially talked about, you know, they said he wasn't abusing them, and then later they would talk about Arkelli extensively coaching them in what to say in interviews. Like he would make them rehearse, some some narrative he made up for hours and hours. Then speak with them immediately after they had done whatever interview to make sure that you know they said what they were supposed to say or they would get fucking beat. You know they

said he watched the interview later and there would be punishment doled out if they didn't do what he wanted them to do. With that kind of person also be willing to bribe their half brother into making horrible allegations about their half sister and then also pay their half sister to keep her mouth shut about this narrative uh... you know if we're gonna win him a lot of public sympathy i think so and you know he was proven to have paid a lot of people off it could have really happened of course it could have uh... buddies claiming that you know two different women sexually abused him in

different ways and and women are certainly capable of sexual abuse but statistically very rare compared to men. I looked up some studies, and who knows how much underreporting there is compared to the victims of sexual abuse to the hands of men. But for example, in a 10-year period, from 1975 to 1984 in the UK, less than 1% of 48,700 sexual abuse cases involved female perpetrators. And quote, a significantly high number were in decent exposure and unlawful sexual intercourse. The latter defined as aiding and abetting a man in him committing a sexual offense.

So a woman leading the abuse is extremely rare. Other studies seem to mirror these findings. And again, it does happen, it could have happened, but he's claiming probably the rarest form of sexual abuse There is and using it to you know kind of rationalize. He didn't want to do the things he did. He's a victim And in the same book he'll claim another incident of molestation One day around the age of 10 which would put the incident in 1977 He says an older man close to the family whom he calls Mr. Blue

Invited him into his apartment the man gave him a piece of watermelon, then disappeared into the shower. He said that when he re-emerged wearing a robe, the man exposed himself and offered Robert $5 to touch his dick. As Arkelly says in Solar Coaster, before Mr. Blue could say another word, I was running out the door with his voice trailing after me. He was shouting, if you know what's good for you boy, you won't say nothing to no one. Say a word and I'll cook your goddamn goose. And this time, interestingly, he said he spoke out immediately and Joanne called the police who came and talked to the guy. There are no arrest records to confirm this, but others in the family have affirmed that

Robert was molested by some buddy, either an uncle or a play uncle, and that Robert became very angry with his mom for not protecting him like he thought she should. His brother Kerry would say that he believed that the incident went further than Robert admitted. And I just find it very unusual that he would report this incident immediately, but not report the incidents with women, right? He talks about how, you know, he knew that you were never to snitch in his neighborhood, but then talks about snitching immediately in this circumstance.

So something is just not adding up for me with all this. If these incidents happened and it does seem like maybe something happened, it may well have had an effect on Robert that contributed to his later crimes. Many mental health professionals agree that introducing children to sexuality at a young age gives them incorrect messages about what sexuality is and how it gets expressed. Also common that, as much as those incidents of violence are uncomfortable and horrific for the victims, they can also unfortunately be arousing, so a victim's sexual arouse will become associated with abuse, which of course is very problematic.

Because in these cases, sometimes victims later become victimizers and turn the abuse around on other people. Male survivors of childhood malastation, also sometimes struggle with sex addiction, fetishizing the things that they've experienced as a way of processing and normalizing it. They also may suffer from insecurity or paranoia, something Robert would nearly admit to when he confessed in his memoir that he often sleeps in his bedroom closet for peace of mind. And they can be plagued by nightmares. I've had dreams of being raped by women, Kelly once told GQ.

I've had dreams about being cornered by things. I have dreams about being chased and shot at all the time. Maybe something happened. 1981 Robert was 13. He would later claim that some neighborhood criminals who wanted his huffy bicycle shot him in the shoulder. Family friends have told a different story. They would say that at 13 Robert was extremely depressed

and shot himself with a revolver that somebody had around the house and Then embarrassed told everybody he was shot by Roberts Just one of many examples of him greatly twisting the truth It seems in an attempt to project the image he wants people to see And the spring of 1994 now 17 year old Robert stood center stage at Kenwood's or Kenwood Academy's expansive auditorium during an annual talent show. Skinny gangly, dark skin, six foot three with close cropped head of hair. He dressed like many of his classmates looking preppy and a white button down shirt. Maroon sweater vest, the sweater vest,

and Kekki pants. He had spent that year playing on a club basketball team which had been the love of his adolescent life, but now he was returning to his first love of music. Sometime in the early 80s, a neighbor he would later identify as Willie Pearl, loaned him a Cassiotone 201, the first portable battery powered keyboard. It appeared on the market in 1980. Kelly began writing rudimentary songs like this one about his mother. I won't do piss on you. Yes I do.

I piss on you. I pee on you. Oh wait, no wait, those are Chappelle's, Alericks about our mother. I won't do piss on you. Yes, I do. I piss on you. I'll pee on you. Oh, wait, no, wait, those are her shekels, uh, lyrics about our Kelly. That's not what you wrote for his mom. Uh, more about that song later. It holds up by the way. Our Kelly's lyrics were hard times. She working night and day hard times just to keep the landlord away. Hard times. She does it all alone. Hard times. Her love keeps us strong. And he got to musically experiment. And at school, he got some training. A teacher at the school, Lena McLinn, who led chorus, excuse me, had reawaken Robert's musical passion. Lena had grown up in a Baptist church,

you know, in the choirs there. And her uncle even started one of the first black-owned music publishing companies in the US. She seemed to have been equally impressive. The list of performers, McLinn mentoredored includes Broadway star Mandy Patanken. I remember him from the Princess bride. My name is Amiga Montoya. You killed my father, but there it's a die. Pop star Jennifer Hudson, gospel singer Calvin Brunson, R&B great, shock a con.

I saw her a year or two ago, by the way, and she's fucking still got it. And of course, Robert Kelly. She was a proponent of tough love, pushing him to come to rehearsal early and stay late to hit notes. He never thought he could reach. She even took it upon herself to inform Robert's basketball coach

that he would no longer be playing on the team. Right, he's not gonna waste his time with basketball. He's focused on music now. According to former classmate, she even confronted girls that she thought might steal her singer away told them to leave him alone. Lena is still around 94 years young.

She had a tight circle around her and Robert was at the center of it, center of it. In return, he mastered her lessons about breath control, phrasing and Italian and Bel Conto singing. He played starring roles in school productions of my fair lady, Carousel and Purley, saying in the Christmas pageant, and now he was taking the stage again.

He developed a little routine to offset the awkwardness of the performance hiding behind a dark pair of sunglasses like the designer shades, Stevie Wonder wore Robert had a friend leading on stage as if he were also blind. As another classmate accompanying him on the piano, Kelly sweetly cood, the Motown Giants, then current hit Ribbon in the sky, a romantic slow jam soon to become a popular wedding song. Robert would later describe it like this, that night it was like spider man being bit. I discovered this power. I knew I had something then.

But for all he had in talents, he seemingly didn't have in maturity. He'd keep coming back to his high school for approximately three years after graduating, drawn to Lena McLean and her mentorship. He stuck out as a physically maturing adult in a sea of acne faced teenagers. And what's he coming back? Just Lena or maybe for freshman girls. Sources don't say that, but I think probably. I can't be the only one wondering.

During the years when he continued hanging out at Kenwood, Kelly also busts on the streets downtown Chicago and the near north side, singing to pass her buys for loose change. When he started earning enough money doing that, he left home moved into the old YMCA hotel in the South Loop at East Nines Street and South Wabosh Avenue close to some of the spots where he performed. Very humble beginnings. I'll give him that especially lucrative with the bustling L-stop on Jackson Boulevard in the loop, servicing both the red and blue lines and rush street outside the bars catering to middle-age businessmen. He later claimed that he earned as much as $400 cash a day, singing songs by Stevie

Wanderer and Donnie Hathaway as well as some originals. He would also claim that he worked as a male stripper but never said when or where. Ah, my God, a same bullshit on that one. No one but Robert seems to remember that ever happening. I feel like you might have snuck that one in this book to make women think he has a bigger dick than he does. I mean, that is the assumption, right? If you're going full nude as a dude, probably, probably swinging around quite a tail down

there, rocking a hawk. Eventually, he said he saved up enough money to board a flight to Los Angeles. He then spent several months in California in the mid 80s, claims in his book to have secured a songwriting deal with A&M records during that time. They said it fell apart when he refused to share credit for tunes he had written on his own. So he came home, back to Joanne's house, and regrouped. He soon traveled to the west coast again to make another go of it, living on the beach,

carrying his clothes and a brown paperback. I'm sensing some artistic license again here with the beach and brown paperback for whatever reason. He later claimed that he scored a contract with Benny Medina at Warner Brothers Records, but Medina never confirmed that. Robert was playing mostly at Open mics and talent shows, and then he comes up with a new plan. First, he decides to change his name. He and his girl for the time who he calls Lonniece in his book, they both decided Robert was to play. R sounded more mysterious. Next, seeing that new addition, the California group The Boys, and Guy with Teddy Riley commanded the R&B spotlight. So he followed their model into not being a solo artist.

In 1987, Arkelly forms a crew. He found three guys and the new quartet, Brad of themselves, as Arkely and MGM, form musically gifted men. The reporter would say that the group had formed six months before, with Vince Walker, Sean Brooks and Mark McWilliams, and that MGM did not stand for musically gifted but mentally gifted, but whatever. Whatever it was, the group started performing together. MGM dressed in oversized black suede suits with satin collars and rhinestones. Fuck yeah. Fashioned by Chicago designer Barbara Bates. It worked with cool

mode. Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston. These guys definitely, you can find an old video on YouTube of a Arkelly and MGM's like one of their songs they sang. And they, strong Bobby Brown, my prerogative vibes. The clean cut image also extended to their songs, which were written by Arkelli. They sang about racial harmony and we are family and about the dangers of doing drugs and let's get it together. Children's very familiar sounding song titles there. The world also got a little glimpse

of the real Arkelli in the song, why you want to play me and R&B track with the hint of hip hop. Arkelli wrote lyrics about not being the average guy and lashing out at an imaginary girlfriend. Do I look like a donut? Yes, the way you want to glaze me. That is corny as fuck.

That's like a stupid throwaway joke that I would tell. He probably made it sound cool though. Well, I doubt a lot of the stories he tells, you know, I do not doubt this guy's musical talent, literally a musical genius. One of the most talented prolific songwriters in history But you know, it's probably not his best work Soon the group will be managed by a man named Eric Peyton who let the four rehearses and practice dance moves and his basement That soon began building their own following to new regal theater on East 79th Street and at the cotton club on South Michigan Avenue

Then they became contestants on the Big Break, a syndicated TV talent show hosted by Natalie Cole for one season in 1990. You can find this video online. They made it through two rounds, won the third and final round to claim the $100,000 grand prize. And that was R Kelly's first big break. In April of 1991, shortly after that triumph,

the Chicago Tribune noted that an MGM album on Jive Records would be forthcoming in June. In an interview, our Kelly predicted that the group would become the black Beatles, no shortage of confidence. Thanks obviously worked out for Robert, but they didn't work out that way. In his autobiography, our Kelly would claim that he didn't see any of the prize money.

He blamed MGM and decided he couldn't deal with him anymore. Their manager decided to stick with the group and Robert was on his own again. And that manager was, I'm sure a super fucking pissed a few years later when R. Kelly was crushing it and MGM had quickly faded into nothing. I found Vince Walker. I think the same Vince Walker on Spotify. He's getting eight monthly listens. Can't figure out what happened to Sean Brooks as recently as 2017 Mark Williams was working as a bodyguard for Chris Jenner and Courtney Kardashian. Then he sued them for sexual harassment. Back to Robert flying solo again. He wouldn't fly solo for long.

He now had a solid team behind him. His lawyer was attorney Darryl Porter. Demetria Smith served as a tour manager and personal assistant. He'd met Arkelia here and then perform back at high school in 1985. Darryl McDavid and accountant based in Oak Park a suburb just west of Chicago initially came on board to balance the books He ended up staying by Robert's side for nearly 30 years Eventually becoming his fourth manager So how much shit that guy sweep under the rug? His manager back in 1991 will be a man named Barry Hankerson Tall thin wiring guy with a big afro intense demeanor before working with R Kelly.

He worked for Coleman Young, the first black mayor of Detroit. And he was married to Motown legend, Gladys Knight, but that marriage ended in 1979 and then was not pretty. Gladys would allege that Barry beat her, tried to strangle her, shoved her into a closet and threatened to kill her. Hankerson now 75 years old has been in all kinds of controversies. Most revolved around artists he has managed claiming that he has harassed them or stolen money from them. And he has lost some courtroom battles over that kind of shit.

He met Arkelly in Chicago where the latter gave him a couple demos, including if I could turn back the hands of time and honey love. And it would be very who did a transformation of our Kelly on par with my fair lady. Before 1991, our Kelly was like a big child immature for his age with a lot of rough edges. Barry helped him change not only the style but outward demeanor, also made connections for his new client being very well connected himself in the black music community. One of those connections would be with public announcement, his new group composed of singers Earl Robinson, Andre Boykins, and Ricky Webster. And Quity Public announcement would sign with Jive Records.

Recording contract in hand is crew in place. Hankerson at the helm, R. Kelly and public announcement released born into the 90s on Jive Records in January of 1992. Its second single, Honey Love, reached number one on the Billboard R&B chart, as well as broaching the top 40 pop chart if only barely for two weeks at number 39. Baby come inside, now turn down the lights are Kelly seductively cruned, because there's

something that I want from you right now. Give me that Honey Love. In the video, he would literally pour Honey over a woman's naked body, which is pretty fucking creepy when you think about the piss video that would come later. The now 25 year old singer and songwriters career was starting to take flight with sex and sensuality at the forefront, public announcement toward for much in 1992, even traveling twice to Europe, which was a challenge at the time because of Kelly's fear of flying back then. Born into the 90s, reached platinum status of a million copies sold within a year.

It didn't yield another hit but our Kelly learned Touring that for his brand sex sold and he quickly started to double down on a hyper sexualized image On tour our Kelly developed a skit about a dream of making love to Mary J. Blige the Queen of hip-hop soul Onstage he boasted that some men might give her for play but he could deliver three times better And then he enumerated how in 12 graphic steps. The skip became a song and album title and a template. But before that, tragedy strikes. When he gets back from a second European tour,

he once again returns to his mom, Joanne, this time in the hospital. She had cancer. Soon after his return, she passed away with Robert at her bedside, telling her how much he loved her, and then he was going to become a superstar in her honor. At least, that's what he said happened. The truth might be very different.

His half-brother Carrie claims that when Arkelly started to get famous, he cut his mom off. Said the people to studio would ask why he bought a black Mercedes with his royalties for himself, but his mom, Joanne, was still driving a beater. And some other family members have speculated that he cut her off as revenge for her not protecting him from abuse all those years ago. If this is true, and I would not be surprised if it is, how fucking shady that he would then publicly claim for the rest of his career to be a singer primarily because that's what mom wanted.

If he actually had no relationship with her when she was dying of cancer and then did that, it's pretty cringey. November of 1993, our Kelly releases his first solo album, 12 play. Kelly's stint with public announcement was a one and done album. They would try and carry on without him releasing a second album that did make it to the top 40 of the R&B charts in 1998. And then they released a third album in 2001 and a fourth in 2006 to much less success and Technically, they're still around but not touring or releasing anything that has gone anywhere I Kelly spent months working on his second album at Chicago recording company with a local musicians called CRC The state of the art studio was spread over three buildings downtown headquartered on Ohio Street and top clients paid more than

$500 an hour while the facility catered through every win. Then he wrote 12 of his raunchiest tracks yet. Sex me parts one and two bump and grind and I like the crotch on you as well as two soulful ballots and soon the album was ready to go. On the cover, he wore a black vest open to show his now ripped chest. Dude was fucking hitting the gym. He sported dark shades and a shaving head and he brandished a cane with a tiny adjustable mirror on the end that was there to look up women's skirts. Seriously, the rock to cane with a little mirror

to look up women's skirts. And it wasn't that long ago that he was doing this, but man, such a different time. I don't think that little mirror cane would be very well received right now. It feels like something that somebody like Andy Sandberg would hold on to as a joke on an album cover. The album was a huge success. Sold more than six million copies just in the US, garnished three top 30 pop hits with bump and grind, your body's calling, and sex me, parts one and two. And this

catapulted him to fame and to collaboration with other artists. And while this album was crushing it, Barry Hankerson introduces Kelly to his niece, Alia. The first artist signed to Barry's background records. Soon after she began recording the debut album that our Kelly wrote, produced, and titled for her. The image he would craft for Alia was a very sexual one, beginning with the title of the album, right? A.J. Nothing but a number. Later sources would say that they were having sexual contact by the time of the album, right? A.J. Nothing But A Number. Later sources would say that they were having sexual contact by the time of her very first recording sessions when she was 14 years old.

14, and he's 26, straight up grooming and molesting going on, and rationalizing it with A.J. Nothing But A Number bullshit. Kelly and Alia appeared on BET's video Soul Gold in the summer of 94 dressed in identical hip hop streetwear. Check out that video too. Co-host, Sherry Carter started by saying, everybody seemed to think that y'all

are either girlfriend or boyfriend or cousins. Kelly laughed, I better go get me a white Jeep, oh, presumably referring to the white Bronco that O.J. Simpson had recently driven while fleeing police. Well, no, Alia said, we're not related at all. No, we're not. We're just very close. He's my best friend.

And with that, she playfully tapped his arm in the whole wide world, Kelly said, completing her thought. Through a wide grin, Alia echoed Sam and in a child-like sing-song in the whole wide world. What the fuck is going on here? He's 27 and she's 15. They're not related. What kind of 27 year old dude talks about being best friends with a 15 year old girl that is not his daughter or adopted

daughter. There is one answer for that. Fucking creep. My daughter is 15 and if she told me her best friend with some random 27 year old dude, I'll fucking find that dude, and best case, we have a very unpleasant, don't you ever fucking talk to her again conversation. And this goes on in front of the whole world in 1994, man, shame on her parents and her fucked up uncle Barry Hankerson for allowing that shit to happen, just so she could sell a lot of records for Barry's label. Pretty much literally pimping out his niece, a child, in front of the world. Throughout the promo for the album, Alia playfully refuses to reveal her true age.

Her debut would sell 2 million copies and spawn 2 top 10 singles. And Arkelli continues to crush himself. On September 9th, 1994, at the end of his tour with Salt and Peppa, Arkelli headlines the Budweiser Super Fest at Madison Square Garden. The singer and his crew stayed at the posh Michelangelo hotel in their time square, and the day after the show, police arrested two of his bodyguards in a hotel room on charges of raping and satimizing a 22-year-old woman. The hotel's guest service as agent confirmed that a rape had been reported, according to a New York news day, which added that the police sought a third suspect.

Sources will later say that the incident actually involved Arkelli, and an under underage girl who later withdrew her charges when she was given a big cash settlement. And if true, that certainly fucking tracks with what he does later. Uh, Kelly posted bond for the bodyguards after they spent a night on Rikers Island. November of 1994, Michael Jackson flies to Chicago to record a song called You Are Not Alone with Arkelli at the CRC. Oh boy, these two together. What weird-ass conversations the fucking Michael Jackson and Arkely have about sex. The alleged first draft of this song is online. It is pretty fucked up. Right? I am here with you sitting naked in the tub with you.

You are very young. I am much older. The world is a far apart. You're always in my heart and I'm inside your butt. These lyrics are only online because this episode was put online after I made those lyrics up. But you know, maybe our Kelly wrote the demo and it made its way to Michael's managers and then the man himself.

The song would eventually be released in August of 1995, becoming MJ's first number one hit after his own child sex scandal in 1993. Evan Chandler, a dentist and screenwriter based in LA, accused the singer of sexually abusing his 13 year old son, Jordan. Our Kelly performed backing vocals on the collaboration. And of course, our Kelly would have no problem working with someone else in the middle of a sex scandal. What a perfect match. They were both immensely talented musicians. Who both like to fuck with

kids on December of 1994 Daniel Smith cover story on Kelly the super freak hit the new stands in vibe noting for the first time in the national press the ongoing rumor about Kelly and Alia's real relationship visiting a black beauty salon at Philadelphia's fading gallery mall Smith described a group of women discussing our Kelly because he's headlining at the spectrum tonight. And because word is he just married his teenage protege, Alia, like the jocks on the radio in New York, Philly, Oakland and LA folks are yammering about Kelly's marriage, making comparisons to Marvin Gaye and Jerry Lee Lewis joking about jailbaits and robbing the cradle.

The illustrations in the four page magazine spread included a Cook County marriage certificate for Robert S Kelly and Aliyah D. Houghton citing a religious ceremony in suburban Rosemont near Chicago's O'Hare Airport on August 31, 1994. The publication accurately noticed accurately noted our Kelly's age is 27, but listed Aliyah as being a team, which is not true. And why would I do that? Why not publish the truth? Kelly, Alia and their label reps declined to comment. Kelly also pulled out of an interview with Vibe at the last minute, but nonetheless still

posed for the photo shoot. During the photo shoot, two female fans in their early 20s walked in, asked not only about the alleged marriage, but about rumors that Alia was pregnant. Don't believe everything you read, Kelly said. Well, in fact, they had gotten married, but the marriage was over just as quickly as it began. On September 24th, 1994, Kelly, Alia and her parents, Michael and Diane Houghton had secretly met to sign a document.

It stipulated that in consideration of payment of $100 by Kelly to Alia, two sources later said that the amount Kelly actually paid off the books was $3 million. The two would sever all personal and professional contact and pledge to avoid any public comment about the relationship or the separation agreement due to the nature of the music industry and its ability to engender rumors and disseminate personal information both true and untrue. In the agreement, Kelly admitted no liability or wrongdoing, and Alia and her parents discharged him from any future legal claims due to, quote,

a decline in her ability reputation or marketability. Emotional distress caused by any aspect of her business or personal relationship with Robert, or physical injury or emotional pain and suffering from any assault or battery perpetrated by Robert against a person. And that sounds really bad. I mean, it could have been a boilerplate divorce agreement, but it sounds pretty bad, right? Because it also could not have been that.

And only later will investigators think it significant when other women mentioned that Kelly would physically assault him if they broke his rules. Hankerson and an attorney for Kelly Arnold E. Reid were named as monitors to assure that the two complied with the terms of the agreement. La. So did a Lee's parents take a $3 million payment for our Kelly sexually abusing their daughter? Sounds like it. Would you take a deal like that with your kid?

How would you feel if your parents took a deal like that with someone who fucked you when you were 14 and they were 26? I feel so bad for her right she was such an incredible talent But the way she was introduced to the music business man, that's some dark shit December 31st 1994 New Year's Eve, Alia told a reporter for the Chicago Sun times It's always Alia and Arkelli, Arkelli and Alia, but I don't mind being called as protege because that's what I am She said she had seen the marriage certificate in vibe, but she knew it wasn't true.

She said that they were merely close and people took it wrongly. Those in Arkelli circle also insisted that the two were not married, saying that Arkelli was now at a level of fame where people were bound to make stuff up about him. Mm-hmm. But even if he was becoming famous, he was still snubbed when the 1994 Grammy nominations were announced

in January of 1995. A lot of people think he was becoming famous, he was still snubbed when the 1994 Grammy nominations were announced in January of 1995. A lot of people think he was snubbed because of his relationship with the Leo. Nevertheless, for the rest of the year, you were not alone with the top of the charts. And R. Kelly was back in the studio recording nonstop at CRC, breaking only for trips to McDonald's or rides, his Mercedes, along Lake Shore Drive or to the nearby Six Flags amusement park. Now, Alia would quickly move to disassociate herself from our Kelly, refusing to answer questions about him and saying that she had severed contact

and would never collaborate with him again. She left her label, fuck off, Uncle Pimp, signed with Virgin Records, released in an album, One in a Million, that sold more than three million copies, fucking huge success. She also would go on to start a TV and film career that many have thought that if something terrible wasn't about to happen to her, would have launched her into true like super stardom, like one of Hollywood's biggest stars.

Meanwhile, Jive Records releases, R. Kelly's third album, R. Tidal R. Kelly in November of 1995, and it fucking crushes. So it's five million copies just in the US. On it, he shamelessly boasts about his success, saying even the statue of Liberty wants to bump and grind. But he also humbly thanked the Lord, alternating between profanity and appeals to God. You remind me of my Jeep, I want to ride it, he's saying, girl, you look just like my car, I want to wax it.

But then there was spiritual balance, like religious love and heaven if you hear me. This is because Arkelly claimed he had just found Jesus. Did he? Ah, get the fuck out of here. I think he just knew how to play the game in America and had no shame or integrity, right? I don't think he found shit. I think he just knew that publicly proclaiming to love for Jesus in addition to a love for as much pussy as he could get his hands on was very good for business. Same shit a lot of politicians do right now. Well, maybe

without the pussy stuff, but Jesus stuff, for sure. In the months of follow the R Kelly album, the singer talked a lot and interviews about finding God. In the spring of 1997, he joined rising gospel star Kirk Franklin, who also had spiritually counseled Mike Tyson and Tupac Shakur on stage in Chicago to announce that he had been saved. It amazes me when I look back eight months ago,

cars, women, money, the media. I had everyone's attention, Kelly said. Some may think it's a gimmick, not you. But I tell you, here stands a broken man. Every day I seem to be falling in love with the Lord. I used to be flying and sin, now I'm flying in Jesus. Oh boy. How much underage pushy did his dick find away

into the week he said that shit publicly? Two, three, four girls? How old were they? The irony of such a soulful singer, possibly not having much of a soul at all is not lost on me. He for sure was not on a very godly path. After school one evening in the winter of 95, during the same time frame that he's saying all this shit, Lizette Martinez, a 17 year old high school senior, goes to the mall and Miami's northern suburb of Ventura. She strolls around window shopping

while she waits for her best friend, Michellea Powerie to finish her shift at a clothing store. I didn't look up the pronunciation for having Chura by the way. So I could be mispronounced in that suburb name. The two teens have been friends since age 12 and were now cheerleaders at North Miami Beach Senior High School.

Lizette's not gonna club just as much as she went to church, which was every week, but she didn't drink due drugs or sleep around. She and Michelle Giggled when people called them party girls. Lizette and Michelle just loved music, loved the dance, feel sexy, and Lizette dreamed of being an R&B star. And with Lizette spotted one of her musical idols strolling through the mall with the body guard.

She let out an audible squeal. It was R Kelly. She used to be even more surprised when he came over and gave her a hug. After Kelly walked away, the body guard pressed a tiny ball up. He's a paper with a phone number into her hand. Told her she should meet them later by a nearby sports authority. Right? So he's a he's he's in on this too. Security guard or the bodyguard. Was that couldn't wait to tell Michellea? They went to meet R Kelly to parking lot where he was there with a bunch of other guys. One of them being Barry Hankerson, fucking Barry.

Uh, Barry, the niece, Pimp, or maybe not. Maybe he didn't know entirely what he had gotten his niece caught up in. The group bought the two girls or brought the two girls to Outbackstakehouse. And at the restaurant, Lizette would later say she noted that Hankerson kept looking at her with what she interpreted as fatherly concern, like he wanted to help her. Maybe he was seeing a repeat of what had happened with Alia. But Lizette didn't know about that. She blithely chatted on, talking about how she was 17, how she was senior in high school,

so Arkelly for sure knew how old she was. He's 28 now by the way. Next day, the girls accepted Kelly's invitation to visit Hit Factory Criteria recording studio, where the singer was holed up recording some new material. Lizette sang for him and she will testify later that he told her he wanted to help make her famous. One thing she noticed was that the bodyguard seemed pretty keen on separating her from Michelle. Soon Michelle will stop coming to the studio entirely and the sexual contact with Kelly started within a month of that dinner and outback. It was Lizette's first time having sex and their

relationship will continue for more than three years. When Lizette would spend the night with Kelly those first few months she'd lie, she'd tell her parents, she was staying with Michellea. Eventually her mom and stepdad learned she was dating an older man and they did not approve. So now the Zet moves out, stays with Michellea's family. But really she's spending most of her time with Kelly. At first in the studio or at his hotel in Miami,

then in Chicago, in his house. Most of the time she's hopping from hotel to hotel, making sure that she is as available to him as he wishes. Then once she doesn't have anywhere else to go is strange from both family and friends no job, no money for own Kelly starts forcing her to follow certain rules, right? She has to call him daddy always not Robert, not baby daddy. First of many women to make this claim fucking creepy. She had asked Kelly for food quote like he owned her and he pressure her to perform sexual acts

She'll say she told him she did not want to do like anal play and three sums with other girls When she didn't do is he wished she said he would beat her slapper around soon if she even talked to somebody without you know His permission especially another man He would take her to another room where no one else could watch and knock her around She said the worst beating occurred at the Swiss hotel Chicago She saw Kelly's car downstairs, but he didn't come to her room when he finally appeared She asked him if he was with other girls in the hotel and for the audacity of approaching him with any form of anger Or irritation he proceeds to beat the shit out of her grabbing her and dragging her around the room

Well, someone from another room heard her screams, called security, and when security made it to her room, the set opened the door with Arkelli hiding behind it. And the look he gave her when they asked her if she was okay, made things very clear. If she didn't say she was fine, he was going to do something much worse. So she said he was fine or she was fine. Following this night, he continued to pressure her into sexual acts she found degrading or humiliating, to physically abuse her and sometimes leave her trapped in the hotel room for days. At one point, she becomes pregnant and she does not want an abortion. He does,

she ends up miscarrying at the Marriott downtown on Chicago's magnificent mile all on her own, all alone. This dysfunctional craziness would finally come to an end after the Zette came down with mono that she had got from Kelly. When she went to the hospital for it, the mono turned into a guion beret and her body shut down. I've heard of her announced I feel like Glean bar as well. Her lungs almost collapsed. She spent three weeks in intensive care in Miami. Our Kelly never came once to check on her.

He has moved on. He did send her parents a check for $1,000 to help with the hospital bill, which wasn't even fucking close to a, you know, covered it all. All of that now gave up on her dream of success in the abusive business after her experience is with Kelly, she just wanted to live a normal life.

She will be one of many girls, Kelly Daddy will woo with promises of making them a star only to abuse and control them, then toss him aside when there are too much trouble. In the summer of 1996, Kelly Daddy is arrested along with four of his bodyguards after they get into a fight with some local players on a basketball court at a health club in Lafayette, Louisiana, hours before a scheduled performance at the Cajun dome. One of the three men who pressed charges have been beaten so badly he needed 110 stitches

just on his face. According to police, that is a fucking beating. Police charged Kelly Dady with second degree battery, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and he spent the night in jail, missing the concert and the morning his attorney posted the $11,500 bail. Kelly claimed the man had taunted him and his entourage with racial slurs.

The district attorney in Lafayette eventually determined that Kelly Dady didn't start the fight and reduced the charge to simple battery and he was given a year of unsupervised probation and ended a civilian claim by the man with the cash settlement. And maybe he was a victim in this situation. Maybe, if what he said about the racial slurs was true, he would definitely not be the victim in another legal fiasco in 1996. Later that year, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of Tiffany Hawkins through her attorney, Susan E. Loggins. Five foot six with an

athletic build and a wide smile. Tiffany had enrolled at Kenwood, Arkelli's old high school, in the fall of 1991. She took the bus most mornings from the south side neighborhood where she lived with her single mom. She was starstruck. Each time, Arkelli would pop into Lena McLean's class. A few months before the release of born into the 90s He stood at the front of the room between the cork Bulletin board and the brown chalkboard and launched into song No one could remember exactly what he's saying But he wowed the students because he's saying just for them Few weeks later to have for need of friends

He Kelly daddy cruisin and Hyde Park and his luxury SUV the girls waving down and he compliments his performance in class. Since they were singers, and for sure because he wanted to fuck them, Kelly invited them to CRC and out of watch and record. Tiffany began hanging out in the studio after she contributed to some sessions. She believed she might be on, you know, to owe her way to a career of her own. She became a frequent presence at CRC,

earning $300 in cash from Kelly when she sang backing vocals on Born Into the 90s. And a $1500 check from Barry Hankerson when she performed as a backup rapper on Aliah's AJ nothing but a number. Sometimes she would spend all night at the studio. Our Kelly encouraged her to drop out of high school so she would come to star, he gave her gifts, things that weren't big to him but were big to her like a hundred bucks or air Jordans.

And of course he got something in return. Sex, a classmate of Tiffany's who also claimed to have had sex with our Kelly, said she saw him messing with her playing with her, her breasts and rubbing on her. Once the classmates said they had sexual contact with Kelly daddy while Tiffany watched and he played with her. She was 15 and he was 24 when this was going on. In addition to allegations of underage sex, the 1996 lawsuit charged sexual harassment in the workplace since Kelly had employed Tiffany in the studio. Tiffany also frequently visited Kelly daddy at home according to her lawsuit. This was at an apartment on the 15th floor of Burnham Park Plaza on South Wabash Avenue

in the South Loop, a building he had lived in before when it was the YMCA hotel. Kelly would then move into an even fancier place of a 42nd floor condo in the park short tower on Lake Michigan waterfront just south of Navy pier. Loss who claimed that Kelly would kick Tiffany out of the recording studio whenever he didn't want to have sex and that she agreed to some of the acts He demanded in the studio and at home including three sums with other underage girls. This guy you're going to find out as we go more and more forward is a fucking R&B Epstein. The suit also claims she traveled and had sexual contact with Kelly on his tour bus in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, Washington, D.C. The sexual contact between Tiffany and Kelly continued for almost three years, according

to the lawsuit, ending four months before her 18th birthday in October of 1994. Guess she, uh, she got two old four. According to later sources, Tiffany was jealous of Alia, whom she had first met when Alia was just 12. Tiffany tried to keep the two from sleeping together, but eventually she and Kelly had a falling out. When it ended, Tiffany was devastated. And two months later, she attempted to suicide and then spent time at advocate Trinity Hospital on the south side, naming as code defendants Kelly, Give Records, and Hankerson's management company, Black Ground Enterprises, Tiffany sought $10 million

damages. Her filings included a list of 22 witnesses, who presumably will testify or had already promised to do so. Among them, Alia herself, Barry Hankerson, interesting, Wayne Williams, members of public announcement, staffers at CRC and Robert's half brother, Carrie, our Kelly, then files a counter suit. The singer sought damages of $30,000 from Tiffany charging. She had demanded substantial sums of cash and a recording contract,

or she would quote widely publicized false allegations that he had fathered her child. The press the time did not catch wind of any of this at first and it stayed out of the headlines for a minute. But then the day after Christmas, 1996, columnist Jim Routenberg reported the Kelly lawsuit in the daily news, quoting our Kelly's high price PR firm, Dan Chloris associates. Many celebrities are constantly being harassed and sued and more often than not, they decide to settle. Kelly has decided no way.

Same day, Chloris told Sun Times gossip columnist, Bill's Wecker, are Kelly 100% denies that he is the father of this child. 100% denies he has had sexual relations with Tiffany Hawkins. They had succeeded at getting in front of a potential scandal. The case should be settled out of court on January 23rd, 1998. Tiffany settled for $250,000,

140 to the 10 million she was hoping for. Are Kelly actually tried to compel the Hartford Insurance Company to pay the settlement and response Hartford would sue him, quote, seeking a declaration that it owed no duty to defend or indemnify the insured under a homeowner's policy in an underlying lawsuit asserting claims of negligence and intentional sexual battery. Kelly appealed and Hartford responded to the appellate court that the underlying complaint against the insured sufficiently set forth factual allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor to exclude coverage

under an expected or intended exclusion. So basically a homeowner's insurance company is making it clear here that they don't have to pay the settlement money that you know you need to dish out because you had sex with an underage girl in your fucking house. That's on you. What a fucked up thing to even try to get an insurance company to do? That's so absurd. Hi, this is Daddy, I mean Arkelly and I'd like to file a claim.

Yeah, no, I actually only fucked a kid in my house and she got mad about it and she sue me and I was helping my home owners policy would cover that. Hello, hello. Now, R. Kelly, that's ridiculous. Now, R. Kelly does something to try and hide the growing rumors about his behavior with teen girls. He gets married to a very, very old woman, like an elderly woman for him at least. 1996, he marries 22-year-old Andrew Lee. She usually go by Dreow, a dancer from his touring troupe, sources will later say they met when Dreow was 19. God, he must have fucking struggled to be able to get it out for such an ancient female body.

They've been having a sexual relationship for a while. Their daughter, Jaya, was born early that year. They'd have two more children, Joanne in 1998 and Robert Jr. in 2002. The only three kids, Arkellilia's publicly claimed to have fathered. Around this time, Alia tries to further erase Arkelia from her record, a four-page petition followed by an attorney for Alia and Cook County Circuit Court in July 1997 seeking with legalistic overkill, to expunge obliterate, erase, and or otherwise, holy strike from all public records, all marriage documents associated with plaintiffs August 31st 1994 marriage

Right that meant that the Marriage certificate would no longer be available in public records The petition noted that the marriage had been declared invalid by the circuit court of Wayne County, Michigan That certificate is now legally nowhere to be found In the summer of 1997 Robert realizes his dream of becoming a star athlete for one season playing with the Atlantic City Seagulls in the short-lived Semi-Pro US basketball league. The USBLs rules allowed each team one spot on the roster for a celebrity player. It wasn't a gimmick he's a ball player. He can play owner Ken Grosset, but Dave Hoekstra, of the Sun Times, noted that in five games,

Kelly played for a total of 24 minutes. And for 23 of those minutes, he mostly focused on putting his balls and underage holes. So he never really helps team much. For real, though, I wonder how many girls he took back to the hotel after games. Following your Kelly experiences, some more legal trouble. One night, the spring of 1998 Chicago police arrest Kelly for disorderly conduct as he sat in his new Lincoln navigator blasting loud music outside the rock and roll McDonald's on North Clark Street. According to a report in the Sun Times, police said Kelly became loud and abusive when officers asked him to

turn down his music. A city ordinance prohibited music so loud it could be heard 75 feet from a vehicle as a crowd gathered to watch. Kelly refused to produce the driver's license and officers arrest him and then he went completely limp when they carried him to their squad car. What a fucking childish asshole. But in July of 1998, a hearing the last at less than a minute the city dropped his charges.

Law enforcement sources will later say that the arrest wasn't really about the noise. Cops on the beat, the rock and roll McDonald's new, the youth division of the special investigations unit was looking at Kelly for sexual encounters with underage girls. And they believed he was bumping his tunes

as a part of fucking cruising for teens doing some pie-piper shit around McDonald's. Just fucking playing his flute essentially and getting all these fucking kids to follow. So creepy. Kelly also frequented Evergreen Plaza. Shoffeemoll and the South Side, loved when young girls there recognized him.

All right, this guy's fucking hanging around McDonald's, the mall, and six flags. Just constantly trolling for teens. Local cops are keeping an eye out for this creepy fucking purf. there recognize him. All right, this guy's fucking hanging around McDonald's, the mall, and six flex, just constantly trolling for teens. Local cops are keeping an eye out for this creepy fucking perv. All this teen fucking AKA child molestation is not slowing down his record sales. That's cool. In November of 1998, Kelly's fourth release for Give titled simply are significantly,

significantly expands his reach from R&B into hip-hop, as well as into mainstream pop. The ambitious double album sells more than 8 million copies. Thanks to collaborations with rappers Foxy Brown, Nas, Jay-Z, as well as an unlikely duet with Celine Dion on I'm Your Angel, which reached number one on the pop chart. Also had one of his biggest hits, I believe I can fly, which first appeared on the soundtrack to Space Jam in 1996. He would headline two shows at the United Center that following May, with tickets selling for $75 a piece, more than double the national average at that time, and both nights sold out, almost 50,000 tickets.

Damn, over $3.5 million in ticket sales, pretty fucking solid weekend. Following the 12 piece band, Kelly Krund, I feel like feeling what I feel like I'm feeling right now. The giant video screens show to woman's hand growping several inches below his belt buckle, which were a champ. There was no mention of God, Jesus, a redemption at this show. Show ended with Kelly pulling a young woman from the crowd.

He convinced her to strip down to her panties and bra, then lured her into a giant red bed, then removed his own clothes, and then they disappeared beneath the silky sheets and the stage would go dark. And there was no encore. Dude might have legitimately closed his own show fucking a fan on stage. Just doing every once. Barry Hankerson would quit managing Kelly in February of 2000, five and a half years after

Kelly produced eight and nothing but a number with his niece. His resignation letter included the key passage Said he was leaving because he believed Kelly needed psychiatric help for a compulsion to pursue underage girls Okay, Barry Maybe we're not such a bad dude or not as bad as I thought earlier. Maybe you made some bad choices and then Fill fucking guilt and we're like what have I done? Later Kelly's team would maintain that Hankerson was fired. April of 2000, a young woman named Tracy Samson comes into our Kelly's orbit.

Like many of Kelly's victims, Tracy had grown up poor, dad wasn't around. She got excellent grades in high school. She was so good, she graduated a year early and enrolled in the music business program at Columbia College, Chicago. She was just 16. At Columbia College, Chicago, she scored an internship in marketing with the regional office of Epic Records. In April of 2000, she went to what she thought would be just another work event, an expo for today's black woman sponsored by Chicago radio station. She was excited. At least this work event would have something interesting to performance by then 33-year-old R. Kelly. She wanted to get his autograph for a friend of hers Harriet who couldn't come because she couldn't

skip school. As soon as they met R Kelly hug Tracy, scrolled his phone number on a scrap of paper and whispered into her ear, call me and then hugged her again. That night he invited her to Chicago tracks a recording studio. She went with her friend Kelly W there. He played the girls two new songs as one of the bodyguards chatted with Kelly W. Kelly Daddy, you know, led Tracy into another room where he kissed her and then asked her to jerk him off. She refused that night,

but she kept returning to tracks wanting to learn music production from an undisputed superstar and he did give her lessons how to use other people's work as samples, how to write the hook of a song. He critiqued her demo, but also of course gave her some other stuff. I'll give you hint. What? I bet you can guess it starts with a D and it ends with Ick They had sexual sexual relationship to last year from the spring of 2000 until the fall of 2001 according to Tracy's later lawsuit She claimed that she lost her virginity to the star when she was 16

She said I was lied to by him I was coerced into receiving oral sex from a girl I did not want to have sex with. I was often treated as a personal sex object and cast aside. He would tell me to come to his studio and have sex with them, then tell me to go. He often tried to control every aspect of my life, including who I would see and where I would go. During our sexual encounters, he would make me do disgusting things like stick my finger up his butt as a result of this relationship I am seeing a counselor. I've increased stress in my life. I'm afraid of trusting people

I get headaches whenever I see or hear Robert Kelly I cry when I think about him and what he and what he made me do Tracely also later said that during sexual contact and again, how fucking gross is this this daddy daddy shit. Kelly often told her, tell daddy how old you are. That is fucking disturbing. Uh, the lawsuit included corroborating records about Tracy's subsequent medical and psychiatric care, as well as dozens of pages of phone logs tracking the stars calls to her. It also included travel records documenting the trip Tracy took with him to

Tampa and January of 2001 to attend Super Bowl 35. And the responses to Tracy's legal filings. Excuse me. Kelly's attorney, Chicago and John M. Tui and LA based Gerald Margolis included a paragraph citing the stars, many charitable works as evidence of a good heart. Kelly has visited schools to give talks to students regarding standing schools and other topics. He has participated in charity events to help provide food to children. He has visited hospitals to visit sick children. He has provided Christmas gifts to sick children.

He has participated in religious meetings with children and others. I wonder if you've ever asked those kids to jerk him off or anything, right? Maybe play Doctor with him. Tell Doctor Daddy how old you are. As a fuck on an ICU bed, I wouldn't put a past that piece of shit. Several months after she filed a lawsuit, R. Kelly paid tracing As a fuck on an ICU bed, I wouldn't put a pass at Beesley's shit.

Several months after she filed a lawsuit, Arkelly paid tracing exchange for signing an NDA just like the one that ended Tiffany's claim. Another consequence of this was that she was fired from her internship at Epic Records. She then gave up on a dream of working in the music business, thinking her reputation was destroyed. The day before Thanksgiving 2000, Jim Derogatis decides to head into his office

at the Chicago Suntimes. Maybe Derogatis. Derogatis, a music critic who had recently reviewed our Kelly's last album is fourthtp2.com. Jim generally hated doing all the stuff besides the actual writing, right? Following his expenses, sorting through bins, a promo CDs, a pot up like clockwork. And when he went into the office that day, he was expecting more of the same drudgery. But when he arrived and editorial assistant handed him a fax. He was used to getting faxes from all kinds of people.

People complaining about his reviews, especially when he came after a long time fan favorites like the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel or Eric Clapton. Jim always wrote these office quote, old geezers who were annoyed that newspapers were paying serious attention to John was like hip hop and rap, but this fax was different. Dear Mr. De Regatis, the facts began. I'm sending this to you because I don't know where else to go.

You wrote about Arkelli a couple of weeks ago and compared him to Marvin Gaye, the letter writer continued. Well, I guess Marvin Gaye had problems too, but I don't think they were like Roberts. Roberts problem, and it's a thing that goes back many years, is young girls. Although the letter was signed to friend Jim, initially dismissed it as yet another old geaser trying to disparage a black superstar, and he tossed the facts into the trash. But he couldn't get out of his mind. So the following Monday, he headed back into the office, dug it out of the trash, re-read

it. One line in particular struck him as not the regular grumbly-nove-and-old geaser. It said, I'm telling you about it, hoping that you or someone at your newspaper will write an article and then Robert will have no choice but to get help and stop hurting the people he's hurting. It also had some specifics that Jim had never heard of despite his years in the music scene. Said a lawsuit was filed by a young girl named Tiffany Hawkins in 1997. Robert's managers and lawyers kept it all quiet and Robert paid her $250,000 to drop the

suit. Since then, there's been five or six young girls like Tiffany. There are lots of people who know about this, the facts went on. But most of them are on Roberts payroll, so they would just deny it all. But you could call Susan Lugins, the lawyer who filed Tiffany's suit, and then a number followed. It seemed unlikely that the media would miss a lawsuit filed against a major star, but Jim made a mental note to check it out.

There were a couple of other leads for Jim, the writer said, Roberts half brother Kerry or his old manager Barry Hankerson or Sergeant Chusicki, who had looked into our Kelly on behalf of the Chicago PD. And the writer emphasized this was urgent. Right now the facts continued he's messing with a 13 year old girl who he tells people is his goddaughter this one has been going on for more than two years now and her parents are turning a blind eye because Robert hired her father who is a base player it makes

me sick which is why I'm sending this to you the Chicago police have investigated him but they've never been able to prove anything if you really bad really bad at math, let me explain how extra discussing this one is. If he was fucking around with a girl for over two years who is now 13, they started fucking when she was 10 or 11. This guy might actually be worse than Epstein. Whoever wrote it, they sounded serious. If you are not the right person in the newspaper to deal with this, I apologize for bothering you and ask you to pass this letter along to whoever is.

There was an easy way to check one thing Jim thought. He pulled out his copy of tp2.com, looked at the notes inside, hoping to see who played bass on the album. The credits listed two musicians who contributed guitar and bass, one of them being Greg Landfair. And right under special thanks to Jaya, Joanne, Dreia, came my goddaughter, Roshona, Greg, and Valerie. That proved at least that there was someone R Kelly was calling his goddaughter. Next he called Chicago PD asked to talk to Sergeant Chuziki. He was eventually connected to Sergeant Chuzeweski, her Chexuzki.

There we go. Not the only one who has trouble with crazy Polish names, and introduce himself as a reporter with the sun times investigating Arkeli. Oh, I was wondering how long it would take before someone called about that. I can't talk to you, she said, and then hung up. Clearly something was going on. I wonder why the sergeant hung up. Was she afraid of getting into trouble pursuing this?

Did Arkeli make some kind of donation slash bribe to the department? Did he pay off someone above her to look the other way? Or was she just another confused Polish person who can't figure out how phones work? Okay. Sorry, I'm gonna walk. Jim now went to his editor, Don Hainer, said he might have a new story, a big one. He then drove a dove into stacks of legal filings at Chicago's Daily Center to see if the lawsuit had been filed on behalf of Tiffany Hawkins in it had.

Jim wonder why nobody had found the lawsuit and reported on it, but figured the sense the reporters who regularly checked the bins of legal filings at Daily Santaver White, they may not have recognized the name Robert Sylvester Kelly. Plus, the plaintiff's attorney filed on December 24, meaning it probably got buried over the holidays and wasn't seen by anyone when they came back after the new year. Jim now decided to call Susan Lugins, but since there was a confidentiality agreement as part of the settlement, she since there was a confidentiality agreement, agreement is part of the settlement, she couldn't discuss the case. So we made more phone calls. Sheila Hawkins, Tiffany's mother, picked up the phone and said that the terms of the settlement

forbade her or her daughter from talking to the press. Another dead end. Luckily, Jim thought the case was probably a lot bigger than one settled lawsuit. So we kept looking. He logged miles on the south and west sides, returning to some addresses two or three times. He rang doorbells and the freezing rain in the suburbs, got doors literally slammed in his face. What was everyone hiding? Finally, he found some people who would talk. They shared stories and photos about friends and relatives. They said had been wronged by the singer. And not a single one seemed even a little bit surprised when Jim asked about Kelly and underage girls.

Now he ran a bunch of searches in some kind of newsroom database, looking into every name mentioning Tiffany's lawsuit in the facts and he found some more sources. One of them was Demetrius Smith, our Kelly's former personal assistant road manager and production overseer. He claimed he had undergone a spiritual conversion and quit working for Kelly in 1995. Kelly camp said he was fired. It was Smith who would give Jim the most detailed account of what happened with Alia later repeated in his book The Man Behind the Man. Smith would say that after a

gig in Orlando while on tour with Salt and Pepper Kelly told Smith that they had to return to Chicago immediately before the next show in Miami because Alia had run away from home and needed to see him. When they got back to Chicago Alia told Kelly she was pregnant. Kelly's accountant, Darryl McDavid, an attorney, Gerald Margolis, convinced him he should marry his protege, Smith claimed, Smith, Kelly, and Alia obtained

the Cook County marriage certificate at City Hall in suburban Maywood using fake IDs bought in Chicago's Maxwell Street Market. After the wedding, Smith and Kelly flew back to Florida while Alia stated the Sheraton Gateway Suits in Rosemont, where she and Arkelli had spent her wedding night. With Smith said that within a day, she left and went home to Detroit, telling her parents, Uncle Barry Hankerson about what

had happened. They immediately said about undoing the marriage and keeping it quiet to protect both stars' careers. A family member of Alia's would tell Jim, oh my gosh, they ragged, derogat rocket is something that they didn't think that R Kelly had any devious intentions that he was emotionally and intelligence wise, the equivalent of a 15 year old, making a rash decision that turned out to be stupid. Yeah. See, like they're doing a lot of convenient rationalizing there. They said that was why they let him get away with it, not reporting what had happened, both

that of consideration for Alia's career and because they didn't think it was significant that our Kelly had gone after a 14 year old. According to Smith, the sudden end of Kelly's relationship with Alia crushed him. The singer finishes tour, returned to Chicago, checked into Hotel Niko, where he spent more than a month sleeping in the closet. Well, fucking poor baby. Whenever Kelly got depressed, Smith said he tried to get him to sing hard times. A song he'd written as a teen about his mom in the early days.

And Kelly finally emerged from his self-imposed exile. He wrote a new song called Traded My Life that eventually appeared in the R. Kelly album in November of 1995 with backing from a gospel choir led by Kirk Franklin. Another source Jim looked into was Lena McLean, since it was becoming pretty obvious that R. Kelly returned to Kenwood Academy to cruise for more victims and Lena defended him. Robert comes back all the time. He considers me to be his mother and mentor. McLean told Jim, I don't know what he did outside of school, but in school, there was no hanky-panky.

If they were involved in that, the sad thing is it takes two to tango. Yeah, Lena, come on, it does. But if one of them is young teen and the other is a dude and their late 20s or older, that kind of tango can also be legally defined as rape. So maybe not the best use of that phrase. Lena admitted she disliked Kelly's Ranchier songs, but lauded his potential. She said he has a very decent moral spirit inside this dying to come out. It comes out and I believe I can fly. It comes out in the angel song. He did with Celine Dion. It will eventually grow. It may be a little baby now, but it will eventually get real big. No, no, never did. No, never, never did.

Lina, despite not getting more from Lina at this point, Jim feels like he has enough evidence about Arkelli's relationships with underage girls to move forward with the story. But he still wonders about the girl that the letter writer mentioned who's being abused right now. Reshona Landfair, the girl whose parents worked for Arkelli. She's now 14 while investigating. Jim learned that her alleged sexual contact with Arkelli was ongoing and Arkelli was allegedly having another relationship with a then 13 year old girl. Reshona's friend, neither Raschona nor Raschona's friend were willing to talk, but he did, but he did get to talk to Raschona's aunt, Stephanie Edwards. For a time, Edwards have been married to Earl Robinson, who have

been a member of public announcement, our Kelly's old band. She now recorded under the name sparkle. Uh, she'd even sung backing vocals on AJ, nothing but a number. And she said that Kelly tried to seduce her, but she wanted to keep the relationship strictly professional. She did, however, introduce Kelly to her brother-in-law, Greg Landfair, and to her niece, Roshona, who was 12 at the time. Police would reveal to Jim that they had interviewed Roshona twice. She denied having sexual contact with our Kelly both times.

The Illinois Division of Children and Family Services had also investigated her parents for letting Kelly take Roshona on the road with him and have sexual relationships with her with their full knowledge and consent according to an email from a source of the agency. If true, how fucking gross are her parents? Jim now for sure fell to yet enough to confirm what the facts said. Robert's problem is young girls. And soon he would have a draft of a story. The 21st, 2000 Jim's story goes live. The day before our Kelly's reps declined to comment.

The story began like this. Chicago singer and songwriter R. Kelly used his position of fame and influence as a pop superstar. To meet girls as young as 15 and have sex with them according to court records and interviews. Excuse me. Uh, should have left with girls as young as, according to sources, but maybe there were some legal concerns with some of the victims. Anyway, the story goes on for 3,000 words,

and it had no real impact at all on Kelly's reputation or career. The rival Chicago Tribune ignored it, and the local television broadcast made only a passing mention, only in connection with Kelly's upcoming Christmas concert, the AP briefly recaptured. Nobody else had much to add. Meanwhile, Collar's overwhelmed Chicago's black radio stations criticizing the girls,

criticizing the sun times, but rarely criticizing our Kelly. Criticizing the girls. That's so fucked. If you still think the girls are more at fault than are Kelly and all this. Like just congrats on being a complete shit stain of a human being. Do the rest of us a favor, make the world a little bit better. By heading to the top of the tallest building you can find and throwing yourself off of it. The Christmas concert went on his plan.

The show ended with Kelly singing, I believe I can fly with a gospel choir as 40 children sat behind him on a white staircase. Reporters of the concert asked attendees about the allegations. Most of them said they didn't care. How sad. His personal life doesn't really concern me. Instead an 18 year old girl, a 29 year old woman said, I know Robert, it's not like him.

It's publicity is done on the girls part. I like what a random fan said, I know him. I know, I fucking know exactly who he is. He would have never done that. The story was dead in the water. I know he would have never done that. Story was dead in the water, but more allegations would lead to more stories that were coming.

January 4, 2001, only 14 days after Jim's publishes his first story, a FedEx envelope, empty except for an unmarked VHS tape arrives at the Sun Times mail room. Whoever sent it, type Jim's name is both a sender and the recipient. They paid cash at a drop-off center. a FedEx spokesperson would later say and they didn't know where it came from except somewhere in Los Angeles.

Jim would remember that during his interviews, people he talked to said that Arkelly was obsessed with technology. Dating back to the Polaroid camera, he'd allegedly used to photograph a sexual encounter when he was a kid. These sources said he loved to have the latest high-tech video gadget and he often made sex tapes and screened these tapes for his posse. That is just that is fucking weird. That's a weird thing to do.

Like, people that are probably on your payroll. Like that would be the equivalent of, it would even creep creeper, but like a rough equivalent would be like, I have sex with Lindsay, I tape it, and then make Logan and fucking Tyler watch it here in the office. Check out this, check out what I do here. Ah, fuck it, sweet, right? Oh my God. So Jim watches.

The video shows a light skin black girl or young woman with long black hair, Neelana Pillow. We're in only a white brown panties or bare feet face the camera as she performs oral sex on a man that looks exactly like our Kelly who seems bored. At one point he picks his nose and takes off his white sweatshirt midway through a two and a half minute clip. The singer leans against the counter set against a wall of rough, hewn light color beams with a sink and a gold faucet to his right, a microwave to his left. And just beyond that, a rack of what looks like six VCRs. Eventually Kelly repositions his partner with her butt face in the camera, apparently preparing to have intercourse and then the

tape abruptly ends. There was no way of telling when the tape was made, where it was made, or who the woman in it was, or if she was underage. So they turn the tape over to the youth division of the special investigations unit at the Chicago PD. And now life gets more dangerous for Jim. The day after that tape comes in, somebody shoots out the window beside the front door of his apartment. Coincidence? Jim didn't think so. Later that year, something else tragic happens. Aliyah had released her third album, Self-Titled, in July of 2001. In that August, she had traveled to the Bahamas to shoot a video from one of the singles,

Rock the Boat. The morning after completing her scenes, August 25th, she boards a chartered Cessna 402 with six members of the video crew and the pilot for a return trip to Florida, and they do not make it. The plane crashes shortly after take off, killing everyone on board when she was just 22. And now she'll never get to tell the truth about her real relationship with Arkelli. Simultaneously, Arke Kelly is appearing to most as a hero. Uh, in the fall of 2001, Kelly also wrote a song called Soldiers Heart released as a single dedicated to the heroes of September 11th. He and Jive records pledged that all the proceeds would benefit the Army emergency relief organization and hospitalized veterans in the Chicago land area. The dull,

heavy-ballot flopped peeking at number 80 the billboards, hot 100, but that did not stop Arkelli from touting his accomplishment. Radio stations around the country are planning around the clock, by the statement from his new publicist, Alan Mayer. He'd even announced a concert to take place near Ford Hood with all proceeds benefiting the Texas Military Family Foundation, but that never seems to have happened. Still reputation-wise, he was like Teflon, nothing's sticking to him. Not even the fucking sex tapes he keeps making. There are rumors that Arkelly is documenting one

underage conquest after another and that some of these tapes have been leaked. It seems the people had just started to pick them up from tour buses and backstage rooms, then made copies and sold them as bootlakes. Little more than a year after the first tape was sent to the sun times, a report of there is able to buy a video tape called R Kelly triple X sex tape on VHS for 10 bucks. And Jim goes and buys a different one. The first was the brief scene from the first video they received at the paper. The second depicted a woman who would become the fourth woman to file a lawsuit against Kelly in May of 2002.

But before that, let's back up for just a second. December 19, 2001, Jim gets a call from Sparkle, aka, Roshona's aunt. She said that she had also watched the tape. She said she had seen, with her own eyes, a sex tape featuring Arkelly and her underage niece, who was now 17. She believed that the tape showed Roshona when she was only 14 based on her appearance at the time, but the person who showed her the tape didn't give her the copy, so she couldn't go to the authorities with proof.

Jim said he would try and find it. Jumping ahead a year, Jim still hasn't seen it, but then in February of 2002 he gets a call. A rough voice tells him to go to your mailbox. There he finds an unmarked VHS in a blank envelope. He knows immediately what it is. The 26 minute 39 second videos seemed to have been shot in the same location as the first short tape he'd received. And at 39 second videos seemed to have been shot in the same location as the first short tape he'd received. He'd since learned that it was called the Colorado Room and the log cabin play room in our Kelly's converted Baptist church. He owned on George Street.

Man, what a real man of God. Fucking kids in an old church. More of the room could be seen in this tape, including a huge pine-paneled hot tub. The tape began with Kelly sitting on a cushion beside the hot tub dressed in red sweatpants and a white t-shirt. The tape wobbled as Kelly handed something to a fully dressed, short-haired girl with large breasts and round chipmunk cheeks. It was Roshona.

Thank you, she mutters before she starts performing oral sex on Kelly. The video cuts out again, then comes back as she dances for him on the ledge of the hot tub, fully nude except for a big silver cross around her neck. He directs her to urinate on the floor outside of the hot tub. Then straddle him as he sits on the bench, they have sex while he calls her Shana and she calls him daddy. He asks, this is so fucking creepy, even just the way he asks it. He asks on the tape, daddy fuck you?

And then she says, yes daddy. She had a vacant, disembodied look in her eyes, no appearance of pleasure, or really, any emotion at all. The tape cuts out once more before returning with her line on the bench, next to the hot tub performing oral sex again. And now she opens her mouth and Kelly pisses in it and also pisses all over her breasts and stomach

before fondling himself and then coming on her as well. This goes down in 2002. Now the video ends. He immediately brings it to the Sun Times office and they alert the special investigation unit at Chicago PD and hand the tape over before handing it over Jim made a copy. And the following week, Sparkle came by and confirmed what he suspected. The girl in the tape was Roshona. She confirmed that Roshona looked about 14. She said from how routine the actions on the tape looked, it seemed like this had been going on for a long time. Also identified with Arkelly handed over to Roshona on the tape money. Now when authorities tried to get in touch

with Roshona, they found out that she and her family had left to tour Europe with their group called for the cause. Jim doesn't want to wait for her return and he starts to write another story. The story would not name R Roshona or Sparkle, but would reveal that the Sun Times got in a video a year earlier. Jim's story was published on February 8th, 2002. That same day, our Kelly Daddy sings at the Olympics. I'm that little bit of hope. When my backs against the ropes, I can feel it on the world's greatest. The opening ceremony reaches an estimated 72 million viewers. greatest. The opening ceremony reaches an estimated 72 million viewers. Before it took the stage in Utah, Kelly spoke to Chicago's NBC affiliate WMAQ. It's not true. The 35 year old singer said, all I know is this. I have a few people in the

past that I've fired. People that I've thought with my friends, that's not my friends, it's crap. And that's how we're going to treat it. The reason these things are happening, I really do believe, is because of the fact that I didn't fall back as far as blackmail was concerned I didn't give them any money The world is getting ready to watch me sing a song called the world's greatest and you've got a tape out there trying to rule my career I feel like I owe my fans But this time unlike the last time people pay attention to the article and some are done with daddy

March 19th 2002 Kelly releases his next album, a collaboration with rapper Jay-Z, the best of both worlds. His record label, Jive, and stood by him, released in a statement that we fully support him in his music. Sales, however, would be disappointing. The dissold 285,000 copies in his first week, a lot for many, but not for our Kelly at this time. And although he didn't comment, Jay-Z distanced himself, cancelling the planned tour or supporting

the album. And some other rappers waited, rapper Nas, told a concert audience, we're not in here molesting children. Cisco, who scored a hit with the thong song, got that song as a fucking earworm if there ever was one. Just say saying it now it's in my head. Released a track with the lines, The World's Greatest Whatever, Ain't Nothing But A Child Malester. Fucking hail Nimrod. I've never really listened that much to Cisco, but I have always liked Nas, I like you more

now and now I'm a Cisco fan. But I still won't listen to that one song because it's a fucking torture device. Even Dr. Dre who would put out intensely violent and sexual tracks like One Less Bitch and I'd rather fuck you, shelled a single by his new protégé Truth Hertz because it included a feature by Arkelli. I haven't seen the video Dr. Dre told MTV, nor do I want to see it because there's a kid involved. That's where I draw the line. In April of 2002, Kelly sold his home

in the converted Baptist church on George Street. He'd recently bought a sprawling 22,000 square foot stone mansion in Olympia fields for $5 million. Sources that he'd already built an identical log cabin playroom in that house. What the fuck is it with him in that room? The law enforcement combed through the George Street property, looking for evidence they couldn't find anything and they couldn't get a warrant for the Olympia Fields mansion.

They hadn't arrested Kelly because they couldn't fully prove that the guy in the sex tape with him was that the girl he pissed on was underage at the time. However, in April of 2002, Susan Loggins brought another claim against our Kelly. On behalf of a new client, Patrice Jones, who said she began having sexual contact with the star three years earlier when she was 16. And now the sun times that Tribune, other media outlets in Chicago all report the lawsuit

the date is filed at the Cook County Circuit Court. Kelly's attorneys, John M. Tui and Gerald McGolas, denied the accusations and vowed they'd never settle. The cash machine is closed," Argoly said. But Patrice's story proves compelling. She said that she had been hanging out at that rock criminal McDonald's, where the police had arrested him previously. She said she'd been hanging out around 11.30 at night, Kelly was holding court at his

usual table with two bodyguards. She and her cousin, Cherice, had just come from their senior prom and they were all done up. When they realized who sat nearby, they giggled and they waved, then a familiar thing took place. One of the bodyguards came up, handed Patrice a bald-up napkin with a phone number written on it. Weak later, she called the number on the napkin,

Kelly invited her to visit Chicago Track Studios. And soon, they were having sex. Patrice's lawsuit contained fewer graphic details than the claims Lagan's firm brought for Tiffany and Tracy. It did say Kelly once had sexual contact with Patrice while another woman watched, and that Patrice had sexual contact with a singer at his studio in several downtown hotels

and on his tour bus. And then she told him she was pregnant. He insisted she get an abortion, but she didn't want to. The bodyguard who gave her the napkin told her to go to Concord Medical Group on West Grand Street where she told the doctor she'd changed her mind and left, still carrying Kelly's child. That night, the singer who is now a 32-year-old married father with a two-year-old daughter

put Patrice up in a downtown hotel when he visited he exploded with anger and the eventually convinced her to have the abortion. The next day, the same assistant drives Patrice to see another doctor at the family planning associates clinic on West Washington. She lies about her age when filling out the medical consent forms still only 17, but she claims to be older. Once again tries to avoid having the procedure though and flees the clinic and then according to her lawsuit a bodyguard dragged her back forcibly paid for the abortion with $300 cash and then the relationship with Kelly was over three months later. Once again, the case will settle in exchange for cash and an NDA. But now with all the increased scrutiny,

R Kelly's PR team convinces him to publicly address all this. The team arranges for him to give a long interview to journalist Ed Gordon for BET tonight. They also hired publicist Alan Mayer, whom Variety described as Hollywood's most prominent crisis specialist we've heard from him already before. The interview with air may 8 2002, archaelie wore a striped charcoal suit jacket over a black sweater vest and a white t-shirt. For a part of the interview, he was joined by his spiritual advisor Reverend James Meeks. Oh my god, fuck off with the fake pious shit. Meeks said in America, we're innocent until proven guilty.

Rob hasn't been convicted of anything. Rob hasn't been charged of anything. But Ed, I would want the record to read that if he had been convicted and charged, God still hasn't umbrella big enough for all of us to fit under. You know what, go fuck yourself, wherever it makes fucking protecting the child, Mlester. Our Kelly said he had a problem, but didn't specify what it was. He said he was no angel, but I'm not a monster. He asked his fans to have faith in him and said he needed time to focus on his music.

Gordon confronted him about the tapes directly. Kelly blame press about to suppose a tape on a smear campaign by former employees again, to bring him down. Now, R Kelly started stumbling. He said he couldn't name names. Gordon pointed out that he'd already named a name, Barry Hankerson, but still R Kelly refuses to mention

anyone else specifically who are after him. He does not come across as an innocent man in this interview. And then in May, another woman comes forward with a lawsuit against Kelly. Her name was Montana Woods, a 33 year old Chicago model actress and dancer who had danced on Arkely's get up on a room tour. Local attorney Donna Makowski represented her in the lawsuit. Woods claimed that during the summer of 1999, Kelly illegally and surreptitiously recorded her having sex with him in an office at his recording studio Chicago tracks.

She sought damages and excess of $50,000 for intentional inflection of emotional distress and evasion of privacy. In addition to the singer, she named his co-defendant's track studio, Give Records, and Kelly's accountant, Darryl McDavid, citing all of them for negligence and having knowledge of the performer's sexual misconduct and failing to act to prevent further harm to the public sector and securing any type of treatment for our Kelly, who generated income on their behalf. Like the others, she settled out a court and exchanged for signing an NDA. It's a little weird that I'm glad that she was a lease in her 30s? I mean, still fucked up what he did, but at least it's not a kid this time.

And then a whole bunch of charges are announced against our Kelly June 5th, 2002. The indictment charge Kelly with 21 counts of making child pornography, seven counts of video taping each specific sex act, seven counts of producing the video for each specific sex act, and seven counts for soliciting an underage partner for each specific sex act. He faced a prison term of up to 15 years and a find of $100,000 if convicted. 15 years for 21 counts of craten child porn, that seems pretty light. Kelly was arrested in Pope County Florida shortly after four PM Eastern time. He rented two houses in Davenport, Florida, one for his crew to hang out in, one for his wife Dreia, and their kids in the nanny. Dreia was in the hospital having just

given birth to Robert Jr. and this all goes down. What a fucking fun time for her. Shula later also talked at length about what a monster this motherfucker is, by the way, Kelly was taken to a substation and winter Haven for processing. Meanwhile, his lawyer Ed Genson calls for another press conference in Chicago. Kelly spends a night of June 5th in jail in Florida is represented by Genson in a Pope County courtroom the next afternoon. He has let out on his own reconnaissance, but not allowed to have contact with minor children not related to him by blood or marriage. Early on the morning of June 7th, Kelly returns to Chicago. He'll be fingerprinted and photographed. He pays a $750,000 bond

in cash, right? In $100 bills, quite the flex. On his way out, he said he looked forward to proving his innocence. Then he went to Salem Baptist Church, saying for 50 kids and their parents at a kindergarten graduation ceremony, stop it with the fake fucking religion shit. No part of this guy gets a fuck about that stuff. Meanwhile, the Poe County Sheriff's Office conducts a search of Kelly's residents in Davenport, Florida. During the search, officers recovered 12 images of Roshona on a digital camera. In the pictures, she is having sexual contact with Kelly and some others she's engaged in

a three-some with him and an older woman. Police investigators from Poe County and Miami-Dade County arrest Kelly January 22, 2003 at Miami's Windom Grand Bay Hotel for 12 counts of possession shop pornography stemming from photos they recovered over Shona at the Florida rental property. He come to Florida to film the video for ignition. Now he post bail of a $12,000 bond and his release three hours later from Miami day County jail.

Each count carried a maximum five year sentence, but in March of 2004, these charges are dropped due to a lack of probable cause for the search warrant. So fuck, gets off on a technicality. Officers had no probable cause to search Kelly's Florida homes for child pornography, judge Dennis Maloney said, even though they were executing a warrant for Illinois indictments on making child pornography, that makes no fucking sense to me. That's some fucking just bullshit, weird, lost off. Ah, it's nonsense.

It's a fancy lawyer in there. Pope County drops the charges. In the meantime, Give Records released his Kelly's seventh album in February of 2003, Chocolate Factory. They've used number one on the Billboard albums charts. That's cool. It don't really care, still.

Album sells more than two million copies. At least two million people don't fucking care this dude's probably pissing on kids and making shopworn uh following month march 26 episode 10 of season one of the shapel show are shapels show how he dropped yes on Comedy Central features a sketch of shapel parody and arc kelly and sing a song called piss on you and one I've touched on a bit now has lyrics like uh haters wanna hate love was won a love. I don't even want none of the above. I won't do piss on you Yes, I do I piss on you I'm peon you. I remember watching it. I didn't realize how deep the allegations were you know against our Kelly

But I do remember thinking fuck that guy Despite everyone talking about shepel clowning on our Kelly. But I do remember thinking, fuck, that guy. Despite everyone talking about Chappelle Clown and on our Kelly, his career just keeps crewed along. Only a year and a half after chocolate factory, he returned to the charts with happy people slash you saved me. A double album with one disc of Steppy Music and another of more gospel oriented tracks, because he's a godly man, you guys.

He had fucking PR management. Released in August 2004, two years and two months after the indictment, the album is still sold three million copies. Dude must have felt virtually untouchable. I mean, share he's dealing with some legal shit, but his lawyers are handling that. And he's making, you know,

easily enough money to pay all his lawyers, pay off victims, and, you know, live a wealthy lifestyle. Month after half of people you save me arrives and stores, Kelly sets out with Jay-Z on the revitalized best of both World's Tour tour and soon they will release unfinished business together and I wanted to Jay Z know that he know and just not fucking care. I mean he may be on say Beyonce when she was 18 and he was 30. Did he previously date a bit

younger than that or maybe our Kelly convinced him it was all bullshit. I don't know. While on tour our Kelly delivered long rants on stage about people who betrayed him. He also did weirder shit. One night he got two planted dancers to come up on stage, get into his prop tour bus. They emerged clad in prison style jumpsuits, feigning a wild threesome.

Also had weird behavior off stage, like demanding the McDonald's open up for him after hours and his crew and also allowing him to hand orders to customers in the drive through window. Just fucking flex on his fame here. During his second solo set of Madison's Square Garden, Kelly suddenly fled the stage, saying two people in the crowd were waving guns at him, no one else saw these guns. Then when he tried to return the stage, acted all kinds of crazy, Jay-Z's friend Pepper sprays him. And now, our Kelly goes to St. Vincent's Hospital while Jay-Z ends the show with several superstar guests from the audience. Following that meltdown, Arkelly

is kicked off the tour and replaced by Ferel Williams, Snoop Dogg, and Kanye West. This stress of all this trial must have been really weighed on him. I don't know, especially because he knows he's guilty as fuck. But he isn't worried. I love him. I love him. Sorry, I'm just laughing, just kind of putting it together in my head, that he gets kicked off a tour for being too crazy and replaced by Kanye West. Something funny there. But he's not worried about, you know, his legal trouble is enough to stop beating women and degrading and sexually abusing girls.

The September of 2005, his wife, Dreia, petitions, Cook County, Circuit Court for an order of protection against her husband of nine years. She said he repeatedly slapped her when she asked for a divorce, which he wouldn't back down, and they will finalize the divorce a little more than a year later. Fast forwarding now almost three years. The trial for child pornography charges will begin in May of 2008. Crazy how long it takes so many trials to start. Feels like we either need more courts or I don't know, stop jamming up the courts with bullshit, drug possession crimes and things like that. Seems like Pee-dose deserve, you know, a bit

more focus legally. R. Kelly become more prolific than ever in the previous few years. He'd released TP-3 reloaded in 2005. He released double up, May of 2007. Both go platinum. He worked with ludicrous, LL Cool J, Lil Wayne Snoop Dogg, Nelly Usher, TI, T-Pain, Kid Rock and more.

The charge of the child pornography against him, still were not being taken too seriously by his fans and the culture at large. Even though most people did seem to believe he was guilty. Sedric, the entertainer cracked on the Kings of Comedy Tour. Yeah, R Kelly was set up. He set up the camera. Pretty solidly crafted joke.

It seemed easier to poke fun at his urine fetish and dealing with the legacy of troubling behavior that has spanned his entire career. In the cultural consciousness, the tape had become the p-tape, not the statutory rape tape. During the actual trial now, woman from Georgia will testify about how she, Roshona and R Kelly had three sums in the log cabin room, starting when Roshona was 13. So fucking young. The seventh grader.

R Kelly's legal team would try and portray the Georgia woman as a liar, aiming to get money by blackmailing him. Indeed Kelly had offered her money in exchange for a tape and she had gone to collect it. And she also fucked a 13 year old along with our Kelly, which didn't make her the most likeable witness. This was a pattern with several states witnesses. They were far from perfect. Some of them had taken money from Kelly or failed to contact authorities promptly.

Also hurting the prosecution, bringing in all the alias stuff was off the table. Judge gone sided with the defense on its lack of relevance, meaning it was harder now to show a pattern of Kelly's attraction to young girls. They couldn't discuss the Florida photos, the other tapes, or civil lawsuits. In the end, the trial mostly focused on Roshona, and she refused to testify. She was scared and embarrassed, and the state did not want to revictimize her by forcing her to. And then our Kelly's legal team got several of her shown as family members to testify that the girl in the tape was not her. How much were they bribed? On June 13, 2008, a Chicago jury finds Kelly not guilty on all 14 counts of child porn. Thank you, Jesus, our Kelly whispers.

Still pretended to be, you know, struggling Christian. He's such a wheezy mother fucker. That day, he passed someone outside the courthouse 15-year-old Joranda Johnson. A dedicated are Kelly fan, she cheered when she heard the verdict. Outside, he gives her his autograph on a bank slip, another weird little flex. She has it laminated. And then in May of 2009, 11 months after the trial ends, a member of Kelly's crew, friends Jororanda on my space, he invites her to a party at Kelly's home at one Mark's Lane in Olympia Fields, the five bedroom seven bathroom mansion Kelly lived in alone since his divorce. I think you can see what this is going. Joranda had just turned 16 and she went lying to her parents and she was at a friend's

house. At the party, she and our Kelly exchanged numbers. Of course they do. Dude will just not stop fucking teens. He's 42 now, by the way. A 42 year old man fresh off a child pornography trial, given his phone number to a 16 year old. On June 15, Vicer back sends one of his crew to pick her up in a black SUV, tells her to bring a bathing suit. At the pool, he tells Joronda that he wants her to undress for him and walk back and forth like she's modeling. From there he takes her into his game room where they have oral sex.

Kelly also makes Joronda write and sign letters stating that she had stolen Julie and cash from him and that her parents had set her up to blackmail him. He told her it was insurance so she wouldn't talk about their relationship. On her third trip he gives her a strong drink, he calls sex in the kitchen, just like the name one of his songs, and it hits her hard and they have sex. They will continue having sex for the next seven months, making Joranda call him daddy, just like he did with all these other women, always the creepy daddy shit, right? With this fucking hot, hard, creepy father daddy, simply dripping in the, I don't know,

probably pissing, creepy daddy sweat. He also had her wear two pig tails and schoolgirl outfits, which is not just like a fantasy look when the girl actually is a schoolgirl. When it came time to go home, Arkelly would always ask, you know, what she needed, if she said she needed to change a clothes, he'd offer to buy them for her. He never wanted her to leave unless he was through with her. He told her to tell other people that she was 19 and to act like she was 25. She later testified that she asked him once, do you like girls younger? And she said that he said, of course I do because I can train them. Older women, they have too much knowledge. When they're young, I can train them and I can mold

them to be who I want to be. And I believe he said that and meant it 100%. to be. And I believe he said that and meant it 100%. Geronda eventually brought a friend over Dominique who was 17. They had to follow what Kelly Daddy called his rules, dress and embagy clothing, sometimes turn it over their phones, asking him permission to shower, eat, go to the bathroom, relieve the property. Geronda hated giving him her phone, often hid it in her pocket. If Geronda broke Kelly Daddy's rules or hesitated when he asked her to perform certain sex acts, she said he insulted and slapped her. Soon Duranda and Dominique broke the rules texting each other from their respective rooms and now they realize they were not the only two girls on the property he was f**king. They figured out that Kelly must have had different girls in each room.

He'd go room to room doing whatever he wanted to each girl before going into the next room. They were living in some sort of sex code. June 14, 2009, two Olympia Fields police cars pull up to Kelly's mansion in search of Dominique. Her family had called for a well-being check. Dominique wasn't there, but Joronda was watching Transformers in the Mansions home theater. Usually, Kelly only joined her to watch Bulls games.

She said he once hit her because she was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers instead of his favorite team. Or, and how incredibly creepy is this? He would want to watch toddlers and Tierra's with her. Strongly assuming it turned him on. With the cops at the door, Kelly Panicked rushed into the theater room and told Geron to hide. Kelly told her they're looking for a 17 year old. You're not 17 because like I said, you're 19.

She saw the cops at the door on the mansion's closed circuit video system. She heard Kelly call his attorney Ed Genson, who advised him he did not have to let officers search his home if they did not have a warrant. They didn't, so the police backed off. Joranda kept hanging out of the mansion. She had sexed them all the time. She said, including with the woman he called his trainer

because she taught new girls the rules. This unnamed trainer had been best friends since high school with Roshona Landfair. The girl Kelly Deati had been abused and since she was fucking who knows, 12, 13, 14. Was this unnamed trainer the Galein Maxwell to R Kelly's Jeffrey Epstein? Don't know. December 2009, Jive Records releases R Kelly's

10th album, Untitled. They got generally positive reviews, but doesn't go platinum. Never sells a million copies. His first record on jive to fall short of that mark. Also, unlike the previous three albums, does not debut at number one on the charts. Maybe it just wasn't as good as previous albums or maybe more people don't want to support this fucking creep daddy. January 2010, Joronda breaks contact off with Kelly after the two have an argument when he caught her text in a friend. She's

still only 16 because she broke his rules by texting her friend. He demanded that she have a threesome with him and another man to prove her loyalty. And she refused. Then he slapped her, choked her, ordered her to suck his dick. She said that while she was sucking his dick, he literally spit on her face and then ejaculated on it. She felt degraded. She fled the room, cried, used a blue t-shirt to wipe off her face, making sure to hold on to it because it had DNA evidence. And it would be used as

DNA evidence almost a decade later in February of 2019. Shortly after she left, she called Attorney Susan Loggins, she thought that that was the right choice because she'd read that Loggins worked with a lot of women who had come forward against Kelly, but then Loggins encouraged her to go with the NDA and the settlement money. This was because after the first three lawsuits, Lagan's and Kelly's legal teams reached an agreement. She would take the victim's evidence to them privately, they would agree in a settlement, and the whole thing would be solved without publicity or court records.

This happened so much, Lagan's was later accused in numerous publications of running a shady settlement factory for Arkelly. How fucking gross is that? She made a lot of money helping keep Arkelly from real justice. There, not a fan, not a fan of lawyers like that. Joranda stayed silent like all Arkelly's victims as far in exchange for what she later said was one and a half million dollars. But then in 2012, Arkelly was no longer able to make this and other payments.

His record will not sell them like they used to. 2012 is right me back also fails to go platinum sells less than the previous record and his shady dealings are finally catching up with them. He has some serious financial problems. The singer had to pay substantial child support and alimony to Drea. He also owed the IRS nearly $5 million in unpaid taxes and the mansion he purchased in 2002 went to foreclosure.

In March of 2013, his lender on the property, JP Morgan Chase, bought it for the sole bit of $950,000. A few months after that, Rudolph Isley, the eldest of the legendary Isley brothers, bought the place for the bargain price of $587,000. That's the fucking real estate purchase of the year. All right, seven bass, four fireplaces, an indoor pool, sits on 3.7 acres. It has a private lake on the grounds full-size basketball court, tennis court, all of that gated in. Now Kelly has lost it. Duranda, when she never got the 1.5 million, she was supposed to get from her settlement.

She tries to go to a new lawyer now, which fires him because he had insisted on working with logins. Attorney number three, David Fish will file suit for Geronda not only against Kelly, but also against logins. Geronda settles the claim against logins for 27,000. Settles her second claim against Kelly for 375,000, a fraction of what she was supposed to get, but got something and better off than Dominique.

Dominique was still living with Arkelly Creep Daddy. First at the mansion, then at a luxurious high rise in Trump Tower, Chicago, calling her mother only rarely. Some calls sounded to her mother like they were prison cell calls, monitored and ending abruptly. Dominique would be one of these six women who would wind up in what has been called Arkelly's sex cult in a variety of articles.

Let's reconnect with Creep Daddy's career a bit now. In the midst of all these problems, Lady Gaga scores a top 10 hit with Kelly on Do What You Want in October of 2013. Why the fuck was she working with him at this point? Did she know? Did she not care? Did she believe Creep Daddy's bullshit about being set up? Also in 2013, R. Kelly performs at Coachella,

Bonnaroo, and pitchfork music festivals. At the same time behind the scenes, he is now abusing a woman named Kitty Jones. She was 35, but looked a lot younger. She quit her job as a DJ, a radio DJ to go on tour, lured by his offer to dance on stage during the shows. Over time, Kelly introduced Jones to the other women in this group. The first woman she met, who was then nearing age 30 was Roshona Landfair. She's been with Kelly forever now.

Kelly told Jones that he had raised Roshona. He's bad daddy. Kitty would say for two years, find the leaving one and Kelly drag Jones out of a subway sandwich shop through her against a tree, kicked, choked, slapped her, all for talking to a male cashier at fucking subway. Creep daddy just keeps abusing women constantly, keeps getting away with it. His public victory streak, excuse me,

will continue with the release of Black Panies in December of 2013. On the cover, he appears in a bandit mask while a woman wearing only Black Panie sits on his lap. While this album sells better than the last two, still not platinum, but does sell over half million copies in the US. And the supporting tour sees him selling out shows all over the place

Behind the scenes not everything's going well his manager Darryl McDavid who had taken over after Barry Hankerson is on his way out Six months after their split around August of 2014 McDavid Seuss Kelly for missing $40,000 monthly payments On a $1.3 million settlement that ended their partnership. More money problems for Creep Daddy. The following year in 2015, Creep Daddy is spending half his time in Chicago in a warehouse studio on North Justine Street. He's spending the other half his time in Georgia

in Johns Creek, a suburb 30 miles northeast of Atlanta where he has two houses, two miles apart. It may have lost a mansion. Might be in a little trouble with the IRS and other people, but he's still free. Still doing what he wants with women, still wealthy. Cheryl Mack, the latest in a long and constantly revolving line of personal assistance,

begins working for Kelly in mid-2013, and she finds both the Georgia properties. And these properties will be the site of a sex cult. Six women who slept with Kelly will move back and forth between the Johns Creek mansion and the guest house on Creek Wind Court. All of them were of legal age, but our Kelly still control their lives, just like he control the lives of younger women. He banned them from contacting friends and family, controlled with the

eight, how they dressed, when they bathed, when they slept, and how they pleasureed him. And of course, they have to call him daddy, only daddy, always with the daddy shit. He orders them to wear jogging suits because he doesn't want their figures exposed to anyone else. Another man entered the room, they are made to literally turn around and face the wall. How insanely insecure is this guy? During sex, they often have to wear little girl outfits, put in shit like berets and scrunchies in their hair. He wants them to look as young as possible, maybe toddlers into your young. And at the break his rules, they get punished. One of these women was Joyce Lynn Savage, she went by joy.

She'd grown up singing in church and Memphis after performing at a local shopping mall. She was recruited for a televised talent show and following that, the Savage Savage family moved to California. But California was too expensive. So they relocated to Atlanta, hoping the vibrant music scene there would help their daughter's career. They paid for joy to recover with record with a producer named Tone, sent her demos to record record labels and ferried her to auditions. Also made sure that she was never alone in rooms with these men. Joy's mother frequently played Joy's demos in the boutique she ran,

and one day a woman said she liked what she heard, as she shopped, said she knew someone in Arkelly's inner circle, and took down the mother's contact information. They got in touch, sent some demos, some pictures, and got an invitation and VIP passes to see Arkelli perform at the Atlanta Funk Fest, May 15th, 2015. Their joy managed to get Arkelli's telephone number from a bodyguard without a mom seeing. A few days later, Joy and her mother get another invitation to see Arkelli perform at the Fantasy Springs, Missouri, Cas Cassino and Indio, California. They would hang out backstage with them for over two hours.

After this trip, Joy secretly began talking to Kelly on her cell phone. She was about to graduate high school, but planned to take a year off to concentrate on her music. But in the late spring of 2015, Joy said she had decided to go straight to school. One weekend, she told her parents she was making a visit to an nearby college she might want to go to. But instead, she flew to Oklahoma City on a trip arranged by Cheryl Mack, Arkelly's personal assistant. Bucking grow Cheryl. Joy had sex with Kelly for the first time after he performed in Oklahoma at the Cox Convention Center, June 4, 2015. When she got home she took

his calls, wondering if he just wanted more sex or was actually interested in her music. All of the calls quickly turned sexual. And one Arkelly said that he wanted her to get in the habit of telling me what color paintings you got on every day. She tried to turn the topic back to music but he said I'm more interested in developing you. New songs are not an issue. I always do hit songs. I always do great songs. Joy enrolled at Georgia, Gwyneth College in Lawrenceville started summer classes in 2016, rooming in the dorms with Tori Savote, then an 18-year-old nursing student.

The two became fast friends, and Tori would listen with concern as her roommate would have phone sex with Arkelly. She was even more concerned when Joy told her some of the shit Arkelly did, like beat her for laughing at another man's joke. Fuck! And replacing her phone with one of his own, which she could only use to call him. She described sexual incidents to Tori

that bother her, like Arkelli making her participate in three sums, three sums, excuse me. And used butt plugs, even though she told him she didn't want to. Joy cried as she told her roommate, but she still went back. She would never listen to Tori's advice to leave him. Joy often visited Kelly at his two houses in Georgia, which were about 12 miles from her college

and then she would sometimes travel to Chicago. By the end of her fall semester, she stopped coming back to the dorms. Never took her finals. By that time her appearance had changed. She began losing weight, cropped her long flowing hair short, died at blonde, stopped calling her family entirely,

missed birthday parties, holiday dinners, even missed her sister's high school graduation, even missed some funerals. On December 25, 2016, a year and a half after she met Kelly, she texted her family, just said, I hate Christmas has to be this way this year. It would be one of the last times they heard from her directly soon, Joy's mother closer store became a detective with one case, find her daughter. She reached out to everyone. And as one person led to another realized she was getting closer and closer to our Kelly, the sav daughter. She reached out to everyone. And as one person led to another realized

she was getting closer and closer to R. Kelly. The savages couldn't report it to police because she wasn't missing. And they had no proof she's been held against her will. They attempted to hold an intervention shortly before Christmas. Joy came by her parents house and bagged gray sweatpants and a hoodie. She smiled and said they had nothing to worry about.

She kept saying she was in love. And R. Kelly cared about her. Joy's mother thought she looked brainwashed, quote, like a prisoner. Without another option, this average is called police in Georgia and Chicago asked for well-being checks on joy at Kelly's addresses.

Door open, slash house clear, slash no one there. Officer Michael Carter wrote in the Georgia Police report two days after Christmas of 2016. Police never returned to the guest house to follow up. Few weeks later, surely before noon on January 30, 2017, three officers visited Kelly's recording studio on North Justine Street in Chicago. Led by Sergeant Dion Trotter, head of the Child Protection Response Unit for the Cook County Sheriff's Office, and an instructor in its human trafficking program, they surveyed the perimeter of the two-story brick industrial

building, noting the iron bars and the windows and all the video cameras lining the exterior. Eventually Joy came to the door, said she was fine, said she didn't want to be bothered by her parents. She said she kept in contact with a grandmother and that was all she wanted. But Joy's grandmother said she wasn't hearing from a granddaughter. Another woman in the group had a similar story. As real, as real, there we go, as real, Clary was from Pope County, not from Disney World, or not far from Disney World. She grew up singing opera and pop songs, which provided an outlet for her depression and anxiety,

her parents, Angelo and Alice, tried to encourage her, especially after she attempted suicide in the spring of 2015. The Clary's bought three tickets to see Kelly perform at Funkfest in Orlando during the Black Panning's tour, April 18, 2015. The promise to take their oldest daughter,

but they didn't want to leave Azriel home alone in her fragile state so they took her instead. And during the show, bodyguards kept pulling people out of the audience, including Azriel. And then somebody passed her phone number. The relationship between Kelly and Azriel developed over phone calls and texts. She kept secret from her parents, right?

Same pattern. One day she went to visit it at his hotel, when she texted her parents, where she same pattern. One day she went to visit him at his hotel when she texted her parents where she was, they called Orlando police, but they said it was a matter of hotel security. That day, they got to take Ezreal home, they vowed to make sure to the singer and their daughter only talked about music.

So our Kelly's team now persuades the Claries that our Kelly wants to travel with Ezreal so she can learn more about the music industry and that a female guardian will be keeping an eye on her and they let her go. Asriel never came home after that. Various sources would say that she became his favorite among the women in the houses. They tried con Chicago PD, but they took no action. Florida police would not investigate either.

Angelo only got a few calls from his daughter and she did not sound like herself. In July of 2017, Asriel said Kelly wanted to invite him to a concert in Indiana where the two of them could talk man to man, where he if Kelly's motives, Angelo did not accept the invitation. Then Asriel told her dad some news. Kelly recently paid for her to have breast enhancement surgery. Savage is late to learn that Joy had the surgery too. The Clarities themselves tried to bring Asriel home in May of 2018.

They flew to Chicago, rented a car, drove to Kelly's new studio in North Justine. There they argue with two of his, you know, constantly present security guards who called Chicago police. The cops threatened to arrest the Claries for causing disturbance and the officers would not take a police report or conduct a well-being check. The cops also seem very friendly with Kelly's security detail. So how many people is this motherfucker bribing? A few hours after their visit to North Justine Street,

Asriel calls her parents via FaceTime, says she's fine, just wants to be left alone. It was almost the same language Joyce Ava Jews when she made a YouTube video telling her parents to leave her and Kelly alone. In the FaceTime chat, Asriel says, our Kelly daddy is the only person who really loves and cares about her.

And then she wishes Alice a happy Mother's Day and hangs up. Another woman staying with Kelly at this time was Asante McKee. She later said she witnessed Kelly lock Asriel in a tour bus for three days. Supposedly because she hadn't done her homework even though she was not in school. So what weird fucking shit was she making her study? How to survive mostly on sex and piss? Soon Asante would realize that Asriel was 17, the age of her daughter. The end of the her relationship with Kelly came

when he berated her for wearing shorts and a tank top instead of a jogging suit on 102 degrees summer day. At that point, she was out. Dominique Gardner, that friend of Duran does, still in the cult. And perhaps the most important member of the group was the woman who made it all happen,

Cheryl Mack, who's still there. Cheryl indeed had arranged much of the cult structure, including recruiting women. After once introducing Kelly to a 19 year old songwriter from Atlanta, she became a member of a sex cult, abandoning writing songs to instead become Kelly's servant. Backing up a bit now from 2018 July 17 2017 Jim What fucking who knows Jim? The regatus I think I can't figure out pronounce his last name again publishes a story on creep daddy This time on the R Kelly sex cult via Buzzfeed news titled inside the pied piper of R&B's cult It detailed how the savages and the claries had tried to get their daughters out of the group for years to know of ale. And now in the age of social media, the story really spread. Six weeks later, Buzzfeed news published a follow up story about Toronto Johnson now, Toronto pace. At the same time, Kenye Tisha Barnes and Bear with me, Ori

Nique, Ori Nique O Diliye, Ori Nique O Diliye launched a campaign called Mute R Kelly that succeeded in forcing the cancellation of 11 of us concerts in 15 months. The women both lived in Atlanta and were advocates for sexual abuse survivors. Their goal was to stop Kelly from hurting more women by eliminating the income that allowed that to happen.

By the next spring, Lizette Martinez would now speak publicly about her relationship with Kelly and the miscarriage she endured alone in the Chicago hotel room when she was a teenager. Victims are starting to come forward more and more. Hail, Memorad. And each time one does, right? Others are inspired to do the same. The sexual abuse fuck fest, our Kelly has been hosting for around 25 years now, finally coming to an end. In May of 2018, times up, a movement formed by Hollywood celebrities to fight sexual harassment in the wake allegations of Harvey Weinstein joined Barnes and O'Delia to release a strongly

worded statement supported by amongst others, directors Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rhymes. Musicians John Legend and Questlove and Tarrana Burke, who founded the Me Too movement in 2006. Speaking of Arkelli's, or speaking about our kele's ongoing sexual abuse of women, the women of the organization wrote, as women of color within times up, we recognize that we have a responsibility to help write this wrong. They demanded action by industry enablers, such as RCA, Sony music, live nation, ticket masters, Spotify and Apple music. They also called for criminal investigations. Our Kelly's team quickly fires back. Kelly's music is a part of American

and African American culture that should never and will never be silenced. Since America was born, black men and women have been lynched for having sex or for being accused of it. We will vigorously resist this attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture.

That's like, it's not black women leading this movement. How fucking gross is this? What an asshole to play the race card in this situation. Black men have been lynched in America, but almost always for accusations of sex with white women, not for praying on young black girls. Racism in regards to our Kelly as I see it would be not vigorously pursuing justice for what he was doing to black women and girls. Not going out for him to me sends a message of black women and girls don't fuck a matter in America.

I didn't like our Kelly much before starting the research this week. Fucking hate him now. Truly no better than Jeffrey Epstein or Peter Neigart. Very similar to both. I don't think of him as a black man. I think of him as a wealthy man using his wealth and power, right? You know, the fame, his standing in the music industry to victimize woman after woman girl after girl. Joyce Savage now releases a second video online through TMZ this time. Once again, claiming like she did with her YouTube video, she's fine. Dominique Gardner appears at her side.

She's fine too. They're not. More and more people do not think everything is fine with our Kelly. Giant music streaming service Spotify announces on May 10, 2018 that it's going to stop promoting a recommending music by Kelly stating, we don't center content because of an artist or creator's behavior, but we want our editorial decisions, what we choose to program to reflect our values. In other words, his catalog would still be available, which still is, but not going to show up on

playlists, right, that they make, that they curate. Two days later, Apple Music and Pandora announced they're also going to stop promoting Kelly's music. That same month, the Washington Post reporter, Jeffrey Edgar's rights, the star treatment, a lengthy article alleging music industry executives will full-blind list to Kelly sexually abusive behavior towards underage girls. Right? Good for acres.

All kinds of people from bodyguards to assistants to tour managers, agents, managers, record label execs, conserved motors, lawyers, etc. So many people knew. I'm sure exactly what he was doing, or at least had strong suspicions didn't do shit. Edgar's reported that as early as 1994, Kelly's tour manager, or of Give Records founder, Clive Calder, to tell Kelly, he would not release the singer's records. If he continued to have incidents with young women after every concert he gave, Calder told the post that he regretted not having done more at the time, saying clearly we missed

something. You didn't miss it. You ignored it to make millions. The Washington Post also suggested that labels were complicit in this sex cult activity. Employees of the studios were Kelly recorded, were required to sign NDAs, not enter certain rooms, where young women in the cult lived. The newspapers were able to publish screenshots of text exchanges where young women and underage girls in the rooms asked Kelly's assistants to let them out so they could go to the bathroom or so they could just get some food. Newspaper also published pictures taken after Kelly concluded a six

week session at a LA studio, paid for by RCA records, showing a couple urine sitting on a piano and urine stains on a wooden floor of another room. How many women did this motherfucker piss on? How often was he pissing on people? The first episode of the hit docu-series surviving Arkelli airs on Lifetime January 3rd 2019. Over the course of season one's six hour long episodes, surviving our Kelly presented the most comprehensive look yet at the allegations against the musician. The show will air three seasons worth of disturbing content, very upsetting content. Two weeks after the program

was first broadcast, Kelly is dropped by his record company, RCA son, I love when fucking docu series documentaries actually lead to real important shit happening. Plan concerts in the US and New Zealand are canceled. Numerous artists he is collaborated with including Celine Dion, Nick Cannon, Chance the Rapper, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, Express regret. The walls are really starting to close on this fucking clown. More victims are coming forward. More people are speaking out. His income streams may be most importantly are drying up. February of 2019 celebrity lawyer Michael Avant-Avanati says he has obtained a new video showing Kelly having sex with another 14 year old girl.

February 2, 2019, the Cook County State's attorney's office in Illinois charges Kelly with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. The charges alleged that from 1998 to 2010, Kelly sexually abused four females, three of whom were teen minors of the time, and evidence included the tape obtained by Michael Avanotti. After Kelly turned himself in, the day the charges were announced, he was arrested by the Chicago PD and taken into custody. The judge set a bond of a million dollars, ordered Kelly to have no contact with any minor under 18 or any alleged victims.

Kelly pleaded not guilty to the charges, which he called lies and was released after 3 nights in jail. A few weeks later on March 6, 2019, the fabulous Gail King interviewed Kelly on CBS this morning and it is a great interview, a fucking master class, of an interview. Highly recommend watching at least a few minutes. Kelly insisted on his innocence and blamed social media for the allegations. During the interview, Kelly had an emotional outburst where he stood up, pounded his chest, started yelling about being a victim of a witch hunt. The segment also included statements by Dominic Gardner and Asriel Clary. They still describe themselves as girlfriends, right?

Defend, declare their love for him, while also dancing their parents. A condition of them, even appearing on the show, was that Arkelly would be nearby during the recording, and he coughed really loudly during their interview according to witnesses to remind them that he was there. These women will later admit that he thoroughly coached them on what to say and how to act in that interview. At the same month in a deathbed interview with the Sun Times,

columnist Neal Steinberg, Ed Genson, long time, Arkelly lawyer said, at interview with the sun times columnist Neil Steinberg Ed Genson long time our Kelly lawyer said, I've represented entertainers represented people connected to organized crime represented professional criminals. I've represented guilty people. I've represented innocent people of Kelly. He declared he was guilty as hell. Man, there you go. A deathbed confession, right? Trying to get some guilt off his conscience. a deathbed confession, right? Trying to get some guilt off his conscience. Soon, Dreia Kelly, right as X-Wife

will reveal what really happened during her marriage. She detailed an incident where Kelly assaulted her in the back of his hummer. Another time she said Kelly, hog tied her in bed, raped her, then fell asleep while she was still tied up. Just left her like that. And more abuse allegations are coming. July 11, 2019, Kelly's arrested on federal charges,

alleging the sex crimes and obstruction of justice by US Homeland Security investigators, and NYPD detectives in Chicago. A day later, following his rearrest, federal prosecutors from New York and Chicago and died Kelly on 18 charges, including child sexual exploitation, child pornography, child pornography production,

sex trafficking, kidnapping, forced harbor, racketeering, and obstruction of justice. And he has not walked as a free man since Kelly's first arraignment on the Eastern District case took place before US magistrate judge Stephen to shone August 2, 2019, where he pled not guilty. Judge to shone denied bail on grounds of both dangerousness and flight risk. Kelly's lawyers made a request for a pre-trial release October of 2019 and were denied.

More indictments filed in Chicago on February 13, 2020. In New York, March 13, raising the total number of charges to 22. His lawyers tried to secure a pre-trial release in 2020, cited the pandemic, requested his night. Kelly was incarcerated at Metropolitan Correctional Center Chicago from July 11, 2019 to June 23, 2021, and was then transferred to Metropolitan's detention center in Brooklyn. With Judge Anne Donnelly presiding in the trial at United States versus Robert Sylvester Kelly begins August 9, 2021.

At the same day, Kelly's lawyers filed a last second motion to dismiss some charges related to his ledge intentional transmission of general herpes to several victims. Since Kelly knew of his infection, the non disclosure to his sexual partners would be a criminal act under the public health law of New York and was presented as a predicate act for the charge of racketeering, as well as the violations of the man act, are trying to get him for everything that can possibly get him for. Judge John Lee denies the motion.

The federal jury trial begins on August 18th with opening statements by prosecution and defense lawyers. First witness called as Geronda Pace. And all 11 witnesses at Kelly's trial accused him of abuse, either sexual or physical, some accusing him of both. Interestingly, I don't ever remember hearing this in the press. Two accusers were men alleging Kelly had sexually abused them as children.

One listed in court documents as Lewis said he recruited the other, identified only as Alex as Alex and testified as a cooperating witness. In addition, eight employees of Kelly staff testified corroborating details of Kelly's motorcycle brandy. The jury was shown multiple video tapes, including ones in which Kelly spanked his victims and demanded them to consume, not just piss, but to literally eat his shit.

Fucking on video. This motherfucker clearly got off on humiliating people, mostly girls, beat some, pisses on them, right? Fucking shits on them, shits in their mouths. There's testimony about him having anal sex with underage victim despite them telling him they don't want to do that. He then beats him when they say no, so much abuse,

so much of the worst kind of showbiz. A month after the verdict, prosecutors disclose that following Kelly's orders at least three women made videos of themselves eating his feces and rubbing it all over their bodies. Albert Fish, Jeffrey Lungren, now are Kelly. The peanut butter dispensing trifecta. Luh. After a six week trial, including two days of deliberations, on September 27, 2021, the

jury returns a verdict of guilty on all nine counts, excuse me, of the verdict sheet. Judge Donnelly ordered Kelly to be kept in custody at the Metropolitan Corrections Center to await sentencing. Creep daddy faced a sentencing range of 10 years to life in prison. They clearly should have given him life. Life was zero possibility of parole, but they didn't. June 29, 2022, he sentenced to spend 30 years behind bars, also still on trial back in Chicago.

Jerry selection there begins August 15th, 2022. The jury will hear from a woman who used the pseudonym Jane. She testified that Kelly groomed her for sexual abuse. Starting when she was just 13, excuse me, presenting himself as the benevolent Godfather. Jane also told the jury that Kelly introduced her to recruit other girls for abuse, just like Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Nigar did. Speaking to efforts to thwart law enforcement, Jane told the court that Kelly sent her to travel to the Bahamas and can't coon to keep her away from law enforcement and coaxed

her to lie to a grand jury before the 2008 trial. September 14th, the Chicago jury finds Kelly guilty on three of 13 charges of production of child pornography and three charges of enticing a child, but acquit him and his alleged co-conspirators of trial fixing related to the 2008 child state, per not early state, per child pornography trial. In their own sentencing memorandum, prosecutors requested a 300 month prison sentence to be served consecutively to the sentence of the Eastern District of New York, which would be effectively life in prison, arguing that Kelly's criminal conduct in Illinois is separate from the conduct of his previous conviction in New York.

And what the fuck? The memorandum states in its opening paragraph, Robert Kelly is a sexual, oh my god, sorry. Robert Kelly is a serial sexual predator who over the course of many years specifically targeted young girls. It went to great lengths to conceal his abuse of Jane and other minor victims. To this day, and even following the jury verdict against him, Kelly refuses to accept responsibility for his crimes. To the contrary, Kelly brazenly blames his victims and argues that his abuse of 14, 15,

and 16 year old girls was justified because some of his victims, as minors, wanted to pursue a romantic and sexual connection with him and others remained in contact with him as adults. At the age of 56 years old, Kelly's lacquer remorse and failure to grasp the gravity of his criminal conduct against children demonstrates that he poses a serious danger to society. Kelly goes so far as to insinuate that he and not the young girls he abused is the victim, because the federal government elected to prosecute him for egregious conduct that occurred throughout the US for over 20 years.

So in summary, he's a predatory piece of shit creeped out. He not fit to live in society. A monster who refuses to take responsibility for what he's done, a true narcissist, and someone like that, you just can't rehabilitate them. You have no responsible choice to make, but to make sure they cannot access any more victims ever again. Gloria Allred, a lawyer who represented several victims in this trial told reporters, I've been practicing law for 47 years. During this time, I pursued many sexual predators who have

committed crimes against women and children. Of all the predators that I pursued, Mr. Kelly is the worst. Yee. January 30th, 2023 now, the Cook County District Attorney's Office announces that several Illinois specific charges against Kelly have been dropped due to him already being served justice in extensive federal sentences, preventing him to face even more maximum prison time for state related charges. Kelly sent since Chicago, February 23, 2023, for the remaining charges. Judge Harry, uh, lean in Weber, sends Kelly to 20 years, 19th concurrent to the 30-year Sence from New York, and then randomly one year consecutively, effectively bringing his Sence

to 30-win years. So he randomly gives him like one fucking extra year. And I fucking hate that Harry. You should have added that those years to the New York sense, make you 30 years sense of 50 year one. You soft on sex crimes motherfucker. Excuse me. In April of 2023, Kelly files an appeal on his case in New York. Of course he does. Let's hope he doesn't win. Let's hope he stays in prison for a long time. But if he ever does get out, he should be fucking broke and won't be able to afford pulling his pie, Piper should again. Because in mid-March of this year, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled as to who gets our Kelly's money. More money's coming in all the time because people still either listen to his shit on streaming platforms or listen to shitties written for other artists and he has written so many songs.

Luckily, none of that money is likely to ever make it to our Kelly should ever get out of prison. The court ruled that first dibs on Kelly's income belongs to Heather Williams, another abusive victim who won a four million civil judgment against Kelly in 2020. For procedural reasons, the appeals court said Williams should take priority over Midwest commercial funding, a Chicago landlord that has owed $3.5 million from Kelly over unpaid rent at a local studio. The court also upheld an earlier ruling that had ordered Sony to hand over any funds currently in Kelly's royalty account to Williams, and to keep giving her his incoming royalties until the judgment is completely paid off. And then Midwest commercials next, and then there's a long list of other victims waiting for money already ordered by various

courts to be paid out. And more victims are opening civil suits against him. His income will continue to dwindle the longer he's in jail. He's currently paying attorneys for appeals and for all these lawsuits. Free or in prison, he'll never be wealthy again. If he ever does get out, I hope some rich crazy asshole offers him a lot of money though. In exchange for living in that person's mansion

as a prisoner, drinking his piss, eating his shit, or her piss and shit, and having those acts recorded and put out there on the web. In the meantime, while he is in prison, He's like, I'm a weirdo. I hope this cellmate, you know, just physically fucking abuses Kelly into like making him sing, I believe I can fly while Kelly has to suck his dick. And he gags at the end of every line. That's what's been in my head. Just, I believe I can touch the, I believe I can touch the, I just fucking, does that make me a fucking psycho too to think that it might, it might. A psycho very glad that this psycho is now in prison for fucking hopefully the rest of

his life and we'll be able to hurt any more people. Now let's get out of this timeline. Before I share some final thoughts, somebody else wants to. Our new suckers true crime expert, Sonny Hollister, Cheesecake Factory, store detective. Detective Hollister here meets Axe. I don't want to throw my law enforcement brothers and sisters under the bump and grind butts. But I believe they flew right over a very important chance to get up on an arrest and catch our Kelly decades earlier than they did. Here's what they should have done.

They should have planned a store detective in the studio long before Kelly trapped girls in his sex cult closets. I mean, come on. If I can blend in at the cheesecake factory, If I can blend in the cheesecake factory, if I can blend in it, Napa Auto Parts, Hot Topic, GameStop, Sears, and Lane Bryant, some beats I've worked in the past. Why couldn't I blend in at the Chicago Recording Company,

for one of the many other studios I've worked at? Thank you, Mr. Kelly. I thought the bass I beefed up in the mix sounded pretty fat myself. Gotta love those 808's. Did I tell you about our new security system, Mr. Kelly? With hidden cameras everywhere? And I mean everywhere, always on, and always recording, you're under arrest. I could have even blended in at Kenwood Academy his old school. Vice principal

Hollister here, you can call me Sonny. And Sonny shines through any and all dark clouds hanging around this here school. I could have blended in at the rock enrollment dummels. Can I clear your table, Mr. Kelly? Allow me to throw away your garbage or keep it as DNA evidence. Would you like some handcuffs with that big Mac? I could have arrested our Kelly faster than you can say, Cajun Jumbalaya Pasta. Now, if you'll excuse me, the factory calls once again. Customers need to feel safe to enjoy a delicious slice of pineapple upside down cheesecake Which is on sale this week Until next time you keep listening to true crime and I'll keep stopping it Stay sunny everyone

Ha stay sunny everyone. Maybe that's a maybe that's detective Hollister's new new sign off. I like him Our Kelly for more than two decades the chart topping R&B singer face continual allegations of sexual abuse, much of it directed towards minors. The accounts go back to the start of his career in the 90s with most of them centering on his predatory pursuit of teenage girls. In 2000, uh, excuse me, in 2022, he was jailed for 30 years after being found guilty of eight counts of sex trafficking, one of racketeering in a New York court months later, he was convicted of child sexual abuse in a second federal trial in

Chicago. It may have begun back in 1994 when Kelly then aged 27, wed 15-year-old singer Alia at a secret ceremony in Chicago. The seeds were there long before that, though many simply accepted that Kelly was immature for his age. There was probably something going on when he kept visiting his former high school. After graduating, to see young students star struck by him. At least one of his victims was a girl that he met at that high school. A lot more than would be girls he met

while he was touring as a star, recording music in Chicago, like Tiffany Hawkins, who sued our Kelly for the personal injuries and emotional distress she suffered during a three year relationship with a star way back in 1996. Unfortunately, she would make the difficult choice to sign an NDA and take the settlement money

rather than, you know, have him publicly or rather than be publicly, excuse me, abused and aligned by R. Kelly's legal team. Meligned. There we go. Words are hard right now. What kind of person would work to continually represent R. Kelly by the way? The kind of person that would feel the need to admit he was guilty on their deathbed, to try and clean their conscience up a bit maybe. In 2001, Tracy Samson sued Arkelli, accusing him of inducing her into an indecent sexual relationship when she was just 17.

The woman of former intern at Epic Records said she was treated as his personal sex object and cast aside. In 2002, Kelly was sued by Patrice Jones, a Chicago woman who claimed he'd preggated her when she was underage, and then forced her to have an abortion. Montana Woods also sued Kelly, alleging that he videotaped them having sex without her knowledge. The recording was allegedly circulated on a sex tape sold by bootleggers under the title

are Kelly triple X. Video tapes like that one would eventually come back to bite him, right? They would took way too long and they wouldn't bite him hard enough. In 2002 after tape was discovered of Kelly having sex and peeing on an underage girl, he was charged with 21 counts of making child abuse videos, sexual child abuse videos, involving various sexual acts. It took six years for the case to come to trial. During which time, Kelly released his wildly successful trapped in the closet albums, and then in 2008, he will be acquitted. For many additional years, he'll then continue to abuse even forming his own sex cult of

sorts, revealed by BuzzFeed news in 2017. The article alleged that Kelly seduced young women when they approached him for help with their music careers before taking control of their lives, dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records. Finally, he would end up in prison, back last throughout 2018, 2019 would lead to some forms of cancellation for the artist, and then he would at last be brought to justice and trials in both Chicago and New York, not soon enough for all the girls whose lives

he greatly damaged. But better late than never. If you were still free today, the 56 year old would undoubtedly still be molesting kids and degrading and abusing women of legal age as well. There's no redeeming Arkelli who to this day portrays himself as the victim. He claims he's a black man linch for being wealthy and successful in America. Sure, he had sex with fans, but what musicians don't get the fuck out of there. Sorry, get the fuck out of there.

Get the fuck out of here. There have never been Arkellilike allegations against Usher, right? Nor against TV Wonder, not against Lionel Richie, and actually I can't think of any other black R&B stars who were ever taken down like our Kelly's been, right? Plenty of musicians have had scandals revolving around underage women, but not like this. Famous 70s LA music scene groupie Laurie Maddox, as repeatedly told the story of how she lost her virginity to David Bowie when she was just 14 and he was in his mid 20s. Maddox also allegedly slept with Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin repeatedly when he was 28

and she was 14. Ted Nugent released a song in 1981 literally called jailbait. Some of the lyrics are well I don't care if you're just 13. You look too good to be true. My God. I just know that you're probably clean. It's quite all right. I asked your mama, wait a minute officer.

Don't put those handcuffs on me. Put them on her and I'll share her with you. And that is some seriously disturbing shit. In 1978, when the nude was 30, he tried to marry a 17-year-old. Right? Julia Holcomb had just turned 16. When she claimed she began a three-year sex relationship with Aerosmith Steven Tyler.

In 1973, when he was 25 In 1958 Jerry Lee Lewis then 22 married a 13 year old cousin who had his kid when she was 14 fucking disturbing 1973 when he was 34 Marvin Gaye released let's get it on a song he wrote about his second wife who he started dating when he was in his 30s And she was 17 bill Wyman former long-time basis for the Rolling Stones married an 18 year he started dating when he was in his 30s and she was 17. Bill Wyman, former long time basis for the Rolling Stones, married an 18-year-old in 1989 when he was 53. And they started fucking four years earlier when she was 14 and he was 49, 49, outrageously creepy.

Elvis Presley met his wife Priscilla in 1959 when he was 24 and she was 14. The world found out, didn't care. People thought she was lucky to have been courted by a rock star. When Red Hat Chili Peppers frontman, Anthony Ketus was 24. He publicly dated 16-year-old Ioni Skye, no career backlash for any of these guys, except, nah, Jerry Lee Lewis. And I could go on and on.

Right, grown male star musicians have been fucking underage fans for decades and decades. So why has our Kelly been singled out and sent to prison? Do you think he was unjustly punished? I do not. I don't because he didn't just engage in relationships with the few fans. He prayed on different women constantly for decades,

videotape them, videotape them being degraded, doing things like literally eating his shit, being pissed on, rubbing his shit all over themselves. He psychologically abused controlled him in ways befitting a true cult leader. Many women, girls, right, beat the shit out of, you know, girl after girl, woman after woman, some of legal age, some not. He did this publicly. What's other guys did? I'm not giving them a pass. I'm just saying our Kelly did something worse. He did way more shit. He didn't fall in love with the teenager

and marry her as creepy as that is or bring her on Tour for a few years as creepy as that is He literally pissed and shit on these girls brainwashed him to not tell their families demanded They call him daddy as permission to do stuff like go to the bathroom We had to fuck out of them when they would decline to do something. They didn't want to do sexually on camera He kept doing this after barely beating child pornography charges and also I think he was taken down because times have changed for the better. What was deemed socially acceptable on some level in the 50s, 60s, 70s or even 80s is thankfully not acceptable anymore. Still think he was taken down unjustly? Come on.

I'm glad society has made improvements to protective minors, right? A grown man grooming teen girls is no longer just frowned upon by some. It's not tolerated by the majority of people in society, but Arkelli did it anyway. And he clearly wasn't going to stop. He wasn't lynched. If anything, despite his sense of 30 years in prison, I guess 31, he got off easy. He should have been put behind bars years earlier than he was, and he should have been put away for life when he was, you know, finally sentenced. I think outside of some takeaways, that's all I have on R Kelly creep daddy today. Number one, R Kelly's career in music was long and credibly successful and prolific. His career and sexual abuse was also, unfortunately, long, I hate to say successful, but also prolific.

Beginning with his secret marriage to Alia when she was 15, he continued to target underage girls, including Roshona, his goddaughter, as well as numerous fans, and pretty much anyone within his orbit provided they were under 18. He proclaimed that this was due to abuse in his childhood by various neighbors and maybe even his sister, but those allegations have not been substantiated very well. And also even if that did happen. No excuse. The overwhelming majority of people who have been sexually abused do not then use their

victimization as an excuse to victimize others. Number two are Kelly move from targeting women individually and often silencing them with settlement money provided in exchange for NDAs to keep them at a house in separate rooms where he could visit them one after the other like sex slaves like members of a sex cult. He would control every aspect of their lives keeping them from seeing their loved ones and families monitoring what the eights and did and how they spent their time many have described it as brainwashing. Number three, many people in our Kelly's orbit protected him beginning with Barry Hankerson. His early manager who eventually did quit over our Kelly's pursuing of his niece, Alia and other girls. His tour managers

as well as personal assistants, both male and female helped him lure in women for years. As did bodyguards who would pass on his phone numbers provide girls with secret cell phones and more. Our Kelly is far from the only predator in the story. Number four, our Kelly was indicted in 2002, resulting from a sex tape he clearly made with Reshowna, but ultimately one is trial, thanks to a lot of fancy lawyer moves and a lot of evidence not being able to be presented in court. He wouldn't be so lucky with charges in 2018 and subsequently was sentenced to 31 years in prison. Number five, new info. Remember how we talked about groupies up top, more there at the end?

five new info. Remember how we talked about groupies up top more there at the end. Well, it was that article from 1969 I first spoke about. Well, that same article also handedly provided a hierarchy of groupies. Let me share this insight into female fans how they were viewed by a lot of male musicians in the 1960s. At the bottom are such aberrant types as the plaster casters, a pair of young Chicago fetishists, who as their name implies have a peculiar hobby. They make plaster casts of rock stars and anatomies, certain parts of their anatomies that is. Only slightly higher on the social scale are the Kits and Tail groupies, who collect and

trade the names of their conquests, often falsely. The great groupie middle class is composed of the gate crashers, organized and persistent. They scour the newspapers for notice of a rock groups arrival in their city, then post lookouts as at transportation terminals and hotels. When they have their quarry pinned down, they move in, dulled up and wild outfits and weird hairdos, hoping desperately to attract attention and earn an invitation inside. If that fails, they resort to more direct tactics, fairing performers dope and exchange, an exchange for their favors or bribing security guards to smuggle them into stars hotel rooms.

Uh, Harlan Ellison, a California freelance writer recalls a heroin night in San Diego three years ago when he was touring with the Rolling Stones. Spawning the young groupie, crawling along the ledge outside his second floor hotel room, he opened a sliding glass door to let her in, but she slipped, fell into the ocean, breaking her wrists and had to be fished out by the coast guard. Ellison had barely recovered from the fright when another girl walked in through his door and asked him if he was a friend of the stones. When he said yes, she stripped and flopped onto his bed.

Such crass approaches are unnecessary for the grand aims of Groupie Society, the super Groupies. Beautiful, usually intelligent, often well well healed, they are welcome in fact sought after company. And who are the opponents of Groupies in 1969? Well those would be super fans. But being a Groupie still is no easy life and it is now becoming even more complicated because of the rise of a formidable counter force known as the super fans. And even gelically dedicated to keeping rock musicians out of the Groupies passionate clutches.

Super fans have been known to rate a performer's hotel room in search of groupies to eject. It's a vocation explains one like being a nun. The problem is that her protective efforts on behalf of her heroes do not often seem to be appreciated. And what a crazy time to be alive. The article does not reference the age of these fans. And if you're of legal age and aggressively want to sleep with a rock star and they welcome the attention right you're certainly not a victim.

But the group you see back at this time was composed largely of girls as young as 12 and 13 based on other sources. And if a kid shows up at your hotel room, what are you doing? Get the fuck out of your room, contact authorities to have them take it home. Going forward, let's hope for sex, drugs and rock and roll to happen in a much more age appropriate way than it has happened for most of the history of modern music. Less molestation and abuse, more adult dick and adult pus, seven grand old time, more hail Lucifina, less arc-helly creep daddy-style bumping grind. Shoulda listened more to your mind when it was telling you no Robert and listen to your body when it was telling you to do what you did to those girls you discussed in Derpag, motherfucker, I'm brave dead. The R Kelly Sex Cult has been sucked.

Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team for helping make and time suck. Thanks once again to Queen of Bad Magic, Lindsey Cummins, the art warlock Logan Keith, for all the merch designs he's kicking out. Thanks to the suck Ranger, Tyler C, for producing and directing today. Thanks to Biddelixer for upkeep on the time suck app, and to both Logan and Tyler for working on socials, along with the team managed by our social media

strategist Ryan Handlesman. Thanks to producer Olivia Lee for her initial research this week. Wait a minute. Got myself just in time. So yeah, it's, sorry, selfie. Olivia is next week.

Also thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating, the coldest and curious private Facebook page, the mod squad for making sure Discord keeps running smooth and everyone over on the time sucks subreddit and bad magic subreddit. Next week on time suck, Olivia Lee has taken a lead on some crusades research. The crusades were a series of religious wars that were initiated by the medieval Catholic church.

The purpose of the crusades was to take back the Holy Land for Christians and to stop the expansion of Muslim leaders into what was considered Christian territory. There were eight main crusades lasting from 1095 to 1291. Some will say there were nine. In a rousing speech in 1095 Pope Urban II urged Christians to fight for the city of Jerusalem. He declared God wills it, a phrase that would be a main theme throughout the crusades. Thousands of people were inspired by the Pope's speech, old and young, rich and poor. They set out to participate in what they believed. Many of them at least was a righteous holy war. To make their crusades more enticing the Pope promise forgiveness of any and all

sins for those who died while fighting for Christianity. During a time when church members were threatened with eternal damnation for the smallest of sins, it was an offer many felt they could not refuse. Right? If you don't die, riches and glory, if you do, heaven awaits. It's quite a sales pitch. Other people participated in the Crusades not to gain land for Christians but for their own monetary or political reasons. Many of these seemingly pious crusaders committed horrible acts of torture and murder against the elderly, women, and innocent children. The Crusades span two centuries, multiple popes, kings, clergymen, military leaders, and dynasties were involved. The Crusades could be considered one of the most important events in world history,

due to its vast impact on Europe, the Middle East, and Western culture ever since. So next week we'll talk about the Holy Land, and its importance in this story will discuss the causes for the Crusades, the political and religious motivations for these bloody wars, and a timeline of the major events. Interest in shit next week, right now let's head on over to this week's Time Sucker Updates. I love this week's information. The WKFL found in the world cult, Suck Hit Home, for an Alaska

Meat Sack, Casey on a boat who writes, then today you have taught me something about where I was born, raised and currently live, Homer Alaska. In the episode preview a few weeks back, you mentioned WKFL. And as a matter of fact, in the middle of town, there is a WKFL park here. Needless to say, I was intrigued. Now, listening, you have mentioned names of which I had heard growing up here. Immediately, I had to pause the podcast to focus on my own research before continuing. In the past few years, a couple of local historical Homer Facebook pages have had pictures of

brother Azea and all I'd remembered was he was known for not wearing shoes. As I'm now digging deeper into those posts, I had previously skimmed over on finding all sorts of details on the fountain and the roots of Homer being intertwined. Seems that for years they lived in somewhat secret around town and few knew the full story. There are people commenting who lost family members in the bombing and the fire in Homer, also known as Venta, and people reconnecting via Facebook after being sent back and forth as kids to California. There are photos of long bearded and barefooted men singing at the Elk's lodge and families

eating with their left hands every other week as their religion said to. The top of all this is that Homer has been coined as a cosmic hamlet by the sea for years. And everyone thought it was just the hippie roots of Homer, not the fountain. I even learned that the random statue outside a restaurant bordering WKFL Park is brother Azea. What the fuck? The Found members were celebrities in town at the time. All sorts of people remember

when they came to town and consider them quirky but friendly and loving people. Sorry for the length and the poor sentence structure as the excitement is hitting this close to Homer. You are a wide range of topics in depth of research and knowledge is once again awesome. I will give it three out of five stars, but I'm going to listen to this one again tomorrow. Keep on fucking sucking kind regards Casey on a boat in Alaska Casey things are given as more fountain information It made me do some extra digging. Yeah, Homer's population now is a little over 5500 people But when the fountain was setting up a secondary settlement around Homer there was only a little over 300 people there It was a very small town. So dozens of cult members suddenly showing up would have been a big deal, would have made a big social impact. Really interesting that there

are still a lot of cult member descendants in the area and a park and at least a statue associated with the cult there still stuff like that makes me wonder how many other little cults around the world have left similar marks on other places. Right. So many people have come and gone on this big old rock and left so many interesting stories to visit. Hail Nimrod. Now curious sucker Jeremy Tisland also wants to share some connections between topics we've covered and his town of Bellingham, Washington. He writes, Hello, mother sucker.

As a Bellingham local, I thought I should send you a tidbit about our town since you've been here twice. We have a local bar called the Waterfront or to us locals, the serial killer bar. It's been the local hangout for our most notorious guests. Most notably Kenne Bianchia, or, you know, Kenneth Bianchi, Ted Bundy, the DC snipers, and possibly Gary Ridgeway and Billy Milligan, who would make a great suck. Also, I think it's kind of crazy that we have a connection to the next topic too, as the piece of human garbage who put the collar on the poor pizza man and rape to disabled person was a belling ham resident. Yep, and about, uh, I ended up talking about that guy last week. Uh, luckily that shit bag died recently.

Kind of crazy. All the links we have to true crime for a smaller town. Anyways, love you and the show. Keep up the good work. Well, thank you, Jeremy. Uh, yeah, belling ham, not a huge city. I mean, not tiny, but not huge. The metro area has a about 225,000 people.

Great college town vibes. They are love building him. Weird that so many known serial killers and other notorious dirt bags have spent time there. Jeremy sent me a link to the info he shared. Billy Milligan was the inspiration for the main character in M Night Shyamalan's movie Split. In addition to the Netflix show,

Monsters Inside the 24 Faces of Billy Milligan. True crime fans looking for a bar with some shady customers in its past should try the waterfront where a lot of these people went They're also said to have delicious seafood for finally a nanor update Almost finally actually second last a nanor update from nan 11 sucker Sydney Sydney I'm gonna probably fuck up your last name. I'm gonna say Nikoliki Sydney. Sydney, I want to probably fuck up your last name. I'm gonna say Nika Leaky. No, that's not... Nika... Nika Leaky. Yeah, maybe Nika Leaky. That's not the time. Sydney, right? Hi there. I'm terribly good nickname, so that's all you get.

Thanks so much for doing this last podcast, and I think it's important for people to understand opportunity costs for what we take for granted, especially in agriculture, which is where I work. Now, you're learning about the socioeconomics of the country and a college class, I decided to do an impromptu road trip through Costa Rica. Along the way, I accidentally found myself in the middle of banana land, not to be confused with the theme park. It was quite the opposite. The monoculture, one crop or plant type, as far as the eye could see, destroyed the landscape with no animals in sight, dirty water and very poor villages. Roads were extra destroyed by trucks

and the people lived an abject poverty. I cried because it was all from my 70 cent bananas. I really appreciate how you ended the show because we can't solve it all. But we can definitely do our part. I try not to let my bananas go bad and try to use them all. They may not be cheap for me,

but they come at a huge cost to others. But that can be said about a lot of things. I just try and do what I can. A crazy podcast about more recent banana things is here. It's the Swindled podcast, episode 50 The Octopus. I'm sure you've heard it. I have not actually, but I wanted to share. As an aside, the majority of bananas sold today are a different variety than our grandparents eight. They went extinct due to disease. The ones we have now are all clones. If a bug ever developed to kill the current plants, think COVID for bananas, almost all the banana crops will be wiped out. Thanks for reading.

Thanks for the podcast. Really gets me thinking through the day. Sorry for the short email, Sydney. Thank you, Sydney. And thanks for sharing what you saw firsthand. It's always more powerful. And for the reminder that, yeah, we can't save everything and everyone, but we can do little things, you know, each of us, we can each try and do our part. And if we all do little things, and together, we can accomplish massive

and meaningful change. And finally, a super sucker, Chris Bowen shares something they are proud of related to a past topic. Then I doubt on the first to tell you, but I had to point it out, the US Navy just changed the name of the USS Chancellor'sville to the USS Robert Smalls. I'm so gosh dang proud to be an American meat sack right now. I love the Robert Smalls suck. Don't give a fuck about the length of the email. Three out of five stars. Chris rhymes with his bow and like the weapons bow and arrow.

Then the opposite of out in Chris. Thank you for the very thorough pronunciation help there, even with the name Chris. You can never, you can never be too careful. Assume I know how to pronounce anything. And yes, how cool that we now have the USS Robert Smalls in the world. What an amazing meat sack that guy was. An inspiration, a fucking legend. If you skipped that episode and want to be reminded of a bravery and courage and integrity

personified look like, just go meet Mr. Smalls. Hail them right everyone, thanks for the messages. Thanks, time suckers. I need a net. We all did. Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Productions podcast. Scared to death, time suck each week, the secret suck also each week for space lizards. Please don't troll local McDonald's,

look for teen fans to fucking piss and shit on this week. Just focus on making some good music and keep on sucking. You know the Sheepel show sketch about Arkelli is dark, but you also know I love dark humor. And I probably listened to that four or five times this week because I forgot how fucking funny. There's so many lines like yes, it's messed up, but also you got to laugh at the darkness. Oh my god, I, let me sing a little bit. I said your body, your body is a polar party.

When I pee, I kick like a does karate. I'm a P on you, drip, drip, drip, P on you, all on you, on you, on you, much better when she pal does it. It's fucking best sketch comedy show of all time on all these years later, I'm still a little pissed. They didn't do more seasons.