Everybody knew the allegations against R Kelly – so why has it taken 30 years to get justice?
R Kelly’s trial was the culmination of decades of accusations, pointing to a predator hiding in plain sight.
Rumours and allegations about the now disgraced R&B singer date back to almost the beginning of his career – and yet, he rose to become a chart-topper, a Grammy winner, an artist who filled arenas and collaborated with huge stars; at his height, one of the biggest recording acts in the world.
The criminal details of his marriage to Aaliyah in 1994, when she was 15 and he was 27 – now detailed in open court, a former tour manager admitting he bribed an official to get a fake ID in order for the ceremony to go ahead – had always been a well-known secret. And in 2002, Kelly was charged with 21 counts of making indecent images of children. After years of delays to his trial, the singer was acquitted, but the allegations never went away.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
R Kelly ‘will appeal’ sex abuse charges
Claims made over the years were silenced and brushed over, by an industry that wanted to keep the money rolling in, and fans who did not want to believe Kelly could have committed the crimes he was accused of. The world wanted to hear his music, so his unknown accusers were easy to ignore.
In the end, it was a documentary series, Surviving R Kelly, released in 2019, that became the catalyst for the singer’s trial in New York, and ultimately led to him being found guilty of all nine charges brought against him – one charge of racketeering and eight counts of violating a law which prohibits transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
For Jim DeRogatis, a journalist and music critic who wrote his first investigative report on Kelly for the Chicago Sun-Times in December 2000, with details of an allegation made against the singer dating back to 1991, it has been a long time coming.
“I always felt like I was late to the story when my partner at the Sun-Times, Abdon Pallasch, and I did the first investigative report,” he tells Sky News. “It had been going on already for nine years. We never thought when that paper came out… that this would still be ongoing in 2021.”
Just over a year later, DeRogatis was anonymously sent a videotape. “There was a manila envelope with a VHS cassette,” he says. “No markings on either.” The contents of the tape, he says, were horrifying. “Twenty-six minutes and 39 seconds showed Kelly very clearly having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl, urinating in her mouth at one point.”
The tape led to the 2002 charges and the delayed trial in 2008. But Kelly was acquitted and continued to prey on young girls.
“He thought he was untouchable,” says DeRogatis. “There was a hubris, an ego there… He was silencing victims with money.” The most shocking thing about the case, he says, is the timeframe, and how Kelly was allowed to get away with what he was doing because of his fame.
R Kelly was once one of the biggest music stars in the world
“During that time, he’s selling 100 million albums – of his own, and [records and songs] he produced for everyone from Whitney Houston and Celine Dion to Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber. This was a cash machine for the music industry that was well aware of his behaviour and never actually acted to stop it.”
DeRogatis never stopped his reporting, helping to tell the stories of 48 different accusers over the past 21 years. But it was Surviving R Kelly that finally got people listening, he says.
“There were police officers who valiantly tried to stop his predatory behaviour. But, you know, until Surviving R Kelly brought these women into people’s living rooms in America, and they saw woman after woman after woman; 12 different women appeared on camera, telling their stories. They cannot all be liars.”
So why did justice take so long?
Kenyette Tisha Barnes, the co-founder of the #MuteRKelly movement – launched in 2017 to make calls to boycott the singer’s music and shows, and “hold accountable those who allowed this behaviour to go on for so long” – says the answer is simple: “Because these were young black girls from inner-city Chicago.”
It has taken movements such as #MeToo and Time’s Up, as well as #MuteRKelly, to get to this point, she says.
“I was a big R Kelly fan many years ago, in the ’90s. And I remember the stories. I started to hear about Aaliyah and the other young ladies, and they were always young black girls.
“I was a black girl, I’m a black woman in this country. And I’ve watched the way the entertainment industry, our whole community, maligned these young women for years. And enough was just enough.”
R Kelly is also facing sex abuse charges brought in Illinois and Minnesota – to which he has also pleaded not guilty
DeRogatis agrees it was a “problem of race”, saying: “What the 48 women whose stories I’ve told in the last 21 years have all said to me is that nobody matters less in America than young black girls. They are simply not believed, and women in general are not believed about a sexual abuse story. But black girls in particular.”
For Kelly, who last released a studio album in 2016, the guilty verdict in New York is not the end of his legal troubles; he is facing further sex abuse charges brought in Illinois and Minnesota – to which he has also pleaded not guilty.
So if the trials go ahead, there could be more allegations against the singer to come. And thanks to this first trial in New York, the spotlight is now also firmly on those who at best turned a blind eye; at worst, enabled him.
Charging the singer with racketeering meant prosecutors set out to show him as the leader of “an enterprise” where “managers, bodyguards, drivers, personal assistants and runners” were all complicit in recruiting women and girls for sex with him.
DeRogatis says there are others who should be facing charges and Barnes agrees that while Kelly was “at the top of the pyramid”, there is still “a lot of blame to go around”.
“Number one, it’s R Kelly,” she says. “Number two, it’s the people who enabled it. It’s the producers, the promoters, the runners, the people in his camp who were more interested in being aligned with a superstar than actually protecting black girls.
“And then we go further: it’s the black community. We’re all complicit. If you’ve ever played an R Kelly song, you’re complicit. If you’ve ever watched that videotape, you’re complicit. I think we have to unpack that reality that we all allowed this man to just move in the most predatory ways.”
“The racketeering statute is generally used against mob bosses and drug kingpins,” says DeRogatis. “We only have one person indicted. How are you a criminal enterprise if no one else in your alleged enterprise is being held to account?”
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has accused the US of a coup attempt after Donald Trump approved CIA operations in the country to tackle alleged drug trafficking.
Mr Trump confirmed his decision, first revealed by The New York Times, as he said large amounts of drugs were entering the US from Venezuela – much of it trafficked by sea.
“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he said.
When asked why the coastguard wasn’t asked to intercept suspected drug trafficking boats, which has been a longstanding US practice, Mr Trump said the approach had been ineffective.
“I think Venezuela is feeling heat,” he said.
Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday evening. Pic: Reuters
Maduro hits back
He declined to answer whether the CIA has the authority to execute Mr Maduro, who denies accusations from Washington that he has connections to drug trafficking and organised crime.
The US has offered a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to his arrest.
“How long will the CIA continue to carry on with its coups?” he asked after Mr Trump’s comments on Wednesday evening, saying calls for regime change harkened back to “failed eternal wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In a message to the American people, he said in English: “Not war, yes peace. The people of the US, please.”
President Nicolas Maduro. Pic: Reuters
US targets ‘drug boats’
Mr Trump also alleged Venezuela had sent a significant number of prisoners, including individuals from mental health facilities, into the US, though he did not specify the border through which they reportedly entered.
On Tuesday, he announced America had targeted a small boat suspected of drug trafficking in waters off the Venezuelan coast, resulting in the deaths of six people.
According to the president’s post on social media, all those killed were aboard the vessel.
Read more from Sky News:
Pakistan agrees to ceasefire with Afghanistan after
Venezuela opposition leader wins Nobel Peace Prize
Footage of the strike was released by Donald Trump on social media. Pic: Truth Social
The incident marked the fifth such fatal strike in the Caribbean, as the Trump administration continues to classify suspected drug traffickers as unlawful combatants to be confronted with military force.
War secretary Pete Hegseth authorised the strike, according to Mr Trump, who released a video of the operation.
The black-and-white footage showed a small boat seemingly stationary on the water. It is struck by a projectile from above and explodes, then drifts while burning for several seconds.
Mr Trump said the “lethal kinetic strike” was in international waters and targeted a boat travelling along a well-known smuggling route.
There has also been a significant increase in US military presence in the southern Caribbean, with at least eight warships, a submarine, and F-35 jets stationed in Puerto Rico.
A 39-year-old man died in hospital alone, miles from his family, after being detained by US immigration officials.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, who had lived in the US since he was four, fell ill while in an immigration detention centre in California.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe was well known in the local Latino community
He complained of a fever and had a persistent cough in the weeks before he died, according to his mother Lucia.
She said he was initially treated by medical staff inside the detention centre but was returned to his cell.
He was eventually taken to hospital for a scheduled surgery to remove an abscess on his buttocks, but died before he was able to have the operation.
His family were never told he was in hospital, learning of his death via a knock on the door from police.
“They’re the ones that notified us that he had passed,” his brother, Jose Ayala, told Sky News.
“We were not even aware that he was in the hospital or even had a scheduled surgery. Then we got a knock on our door a little after 5.30 one morning.
“I believe he would still be alive today if he was never detained. He got sick while in detention, and they did not seem to take care of him.”
Ismael’s brother Jose speaks to Sky News
Why was he detained?
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death raises questions about the conditions inside the centre he was held in, and if a sudden surge of immigrants being detained by this administration has left the system stretched beyond breaking point.
He had moved to the US from Mexico with his family as a child.
He did have DACA – deferred action for childhood arrivals – status, granted to those who have arrived while under the age of 18. But this was removed in 2016, after he was convicted of drink-driving.
In August, he was arrested by immigration agents at a car wash in California where he had worked for 15 years.
He was held for five weeks at Adelanto, a privately owned, run-for-profit, immigrant detention centre. A lawyer for his family said he was, as far as they are aware, a healthy man before he was detained and had no medical need.
But Mr Ayala-Uribe’s mother, who was visiting him every eight days and speaking to him on the phone a couple of times a day, said she noticed him getting progressively unwell.
Ismael’s brother and mother, Lucia
“He started with lots of fever,” Ms Ayala said. “He said they weren’t listening to him. The last time I saw him his face was drained, he told me he was not OK, he told me he couldn’t take it any more.”
Beginning to cry, wiping away tears, she added: “I feel powerless that I couldn’t do anything to help my son.
“I never imagined I was going to bury one of my sons. It feels terrible, they took a piece of my heart away.
“I would like something to change. If we cannot save him, at least we can save others that are still inside.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Inside Trump’s immigration raids
ICE defends detention treatment
The cause of Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death is still under investigation.
Sky News requested comment from the company which owns the detention centre where he was held, and they deferred to ICE, the US immigration and customs enforcement agency.
In a statement, ICE said: “Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay.
“At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergency care.”
The Trump administration says it’s targeting criminals and people in the US illegally. But campaigners say Mr Ayala-Uribe’s death should not be viewed in isolation.
Images from Ismael’s funeral service
Since Donald Trump took office, at least 15 people have died in immigration detention.
Democrat senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote a letter to the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, asking for more information about these deaths.
The senators claimed 10 people had died between January and June, and that it was the highest rate in the first six months of any year publicly available.
Sarah Houston, a lawyer for the Immigrant Defenders Law Centre, claims immigrants are being mistreated in custody.
Read more from Sky News:
The people fighting back against ICE raids
Why US capital feels like it’s reaching tipping point
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
ICE raids: ‘This is like Vietnam’
“This administration’s main goal is to harm, to torture individuals and to try to force them out,” she said.
“The great increase we see in human rights abuses, in deaths, is a direct result of the administration’s decision to pack these detention centres as much as they can.”
Mr Ayala-Uribe’s funeral was held this week. Dozens of extended family and friends wore t-shirts bearing his face. A mariachi band played as his casket was lowered into the ground and his mother heaved with sobs.
As they absorb their loss, the effort to carry out the biggest mass deportation operation in US history continues.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024