R Kelly: Some of the key allegations from the trial

Published

3 years ago

September 27, 2021

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“This case is not about a celebrity who likes to party a lot,” assistant US attorney Maria Cruz Melendez told the jury on the first day of R Kelly’s trial. “This case is about a predator.”

At many points during the hearing, the allegations against the disgraced R&B singer were difficult for witnesses to speak about. Dozens of women, and men, gave evidence, the full horror of his crimes officially made public following years of rumours that had been silenced.

R Kelly – once one of the biggest music stars in the world, a three-time Grammy winner whose chart-topping hits include I Believe I Can Fly, Bump ‘N’ Grind and Ignition – had denied all the charges, his lawyers calling his accusers “disgruntled groupies” and saying they were lying, arguing that any “relationships” were consenting.

However, the jury believed the survivors. Robert Sylvester Kelly has now been 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.

Ms Melendez had told the jury in her opening statement that the 54-year-old used his fame to entice his victims and that he “dominated and controlled them physically, sexually and psychologically”. He was a “predator” whose fame brought him “access to girls, boys and young women”, she said.

Here are some of the key allegations from the month-long trial in Brooklyn.

Warning: This article contains graphic content.

Marriage to Aaliyah

R Kelly’s marriage to the late R&B singer Aaliyah in 1994 had been speculated about for years. Aaliyah was 15, Kelly 27 when they wed in a secret ceremony following the release of her debut album Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number, which he produced.

During the trial, the singer’s former tour manager Demetrius Smith gave evidence about the relationship – telling the court he bribed a government official to get a fake ID card.

He was forced to testify against his will after being given immunity from future charges.

Recalling the events surrounding the marriage, Mr Smith said he went into a welfare office in Chicago in 1994 and asked an employee who was taking ID photos if they “want to make some money”, before handing over $500.

The welfare card was one of two fake IDs used to allow the R&B artist to marry Aaliyah – full name Aaliyah Dana Haughton – after he began a sexual relationship with her and believed she was pregnant, the court heard. A marriage licence listed Aaliyah as 18.

Prosecutors said Kelly wanted to use the marriage – later annulled by Aaliyah’s parents – to protect himself from criminal charges relating to having sex with a minor and prevent the singer from testifying against him.

Mr Smith repeatedly told the judge during his evidence that he was uneasy about taking the stand, but did not give a specific reason.

However, after further questioning, he revealed how Kelly came to him during a 1994 tour and told him Aaliyah was “in trouble” and that he needed to get home.

Mr Smith said they rushed back to Chicago after a concert in another city so they could arrange the marriage, which was meant “to protect him and Aaliyah”.

Later in the trial, another witness told the court that she saw Kelly in a “sexual situation” with Aaliyah in around 1993 – when Aaliyah would have been aged 13 or 14.

The witness, a former backing dancer for Kelly, also said that he had sex with her when she was 15.

Aaliyah later died in a plane crash in 2001, aged 22. In January 2016, Kelly was asked about his relationship with the young star in an interview with GQ, but did not comment. “Out of respect for her mother who’s sick and her father who’s passed, I will never have that conversation with anyone,” he said.

‘He slapped me and choked me until I passed out’

Kelly’s trial in New York came after years of suspicions and accusations against him. Many of the allegations were featured in the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R Kelly, which aired early in 2019.

While some of the witnesses were not identified in the media, and were referred to as “Jane Does” in court, Jerhonda Pace, who is now 28, was one of the women who appeared in the programme and has spoken out against the singer publicly.

She was the first accuser to give evidence during the trial, telling jurors that Kelly invited her to his mansion and ordered her to take off her clothes when she was a 16-year-old virgin, and a member of his fan club, in 2010.

“He asked me to continue to tell everyone I was 19 and act like I was 21,” she told the court. When she told Kelly she was a virgin, he said that was “good” and told her he wanted to “train her” sexually, she said.

Ms Pace told the jury he knew her age as she had shown him identification, and ordered her to call him “Daddy”.

She said they saw each other for another six months, but Kelly grew more and more controlling and would become violent when she broke what she called “Rob’s rules”. She recalled one time when “he slapped me and choked me until I passed out”. Afterwards, he spat in her face and forced her to have oral sex, she said.

Ms Pace also told the court that Kelly would often record their sexual encounters and sometimes ordered her to wear pigtails and “dress like a girl scout”.

‘It was almost like the Twilight Zone’

It was not just Kelly’s victims who gave evidence in court, with former employees describing the things they saw while working for the singer, too.

Anthony Navarro, a trained audio engineer who said he worked for the singer for more than two years until 2009, told the court that girls stayed at Kelly’s mansion in Chicago for long periods of time but could not eat or leave without his permission.

He described the inner workings of the property where the singer had a recording studio, saying it was like being in “the Twilight Zone” and that it sometimes made him “uncomfortable”.

Mr Navarro told the court he never witnessed Kelly sexually abusing victims, but said his job included picking up and driving girls to be with the R&B singer, as well as other tasks associated with his career.

“There’s been times where they (girls) wanted to (leave) but couldn’t because they couldn’t get a ride or we couldn’t get a hold of Rob,” he said.

He recalled being instructed not to talk to girls at the house and having to tell people when girls were no longer in rooms they had been escorted to.

“The things you had to do were just a bit uncomfortable,” he said. “The music and production stuff was really good. All the other stuff was kind of strange… It was almost like the Twilight Zone.”

Victim who contracted herpes

One witness, known as “Jane Doe #5”, told the court that Kelly gave her herpes on purpose and assaulted her while she was underage.

She also told the court that the singer once beat her with a shoe. On another occasion, he forced her to rub faeces on her face and videotape it, she said.

Ms Doe also said she was coerced into getting an abortion after Kelly said he wasn’t ready to have a child with her.

The pair first came into contact in 2015, when the witness, then 17, was invited to Kelly’s hotel in Orlando, Florida, following a gig during which the then-48-year-old paid “a lot of attention to her”, she told the court.

Ms Doe said she told the singer she was 18 when they met – the age of consent in Florida – and said she wanted to be a singer and hoped to advance her career. However, Kelly told her he needed to be pleased sexually before she could audition, she said.

“I just wanted to sing,” Ms Doe, now 23, testified. “I genuinely wanted his input.”

After the initial abuse, which involved oral sex, Kelly was said to have had sex with the victim on more than one occasion. At one point, the court heard, Ms Doe started experiencing pain during sex, which “got worse to the point where I couldn’t walk”.

She was later diagnosed with herpes.

“This man purposely gave me something he knew he had,” she told the court. “He could have controlled the situation.”

Doe said that when she revealed her real age to Kelly, he slapped her across the face but kept her in his life.

In notes that Doe wrote to herself to follow Kelly’s rules, she had written: “Tell Daddy everything.”

Kelly promised a 17-year-old boy fame in exchange for sex

A male accuser, who testified under the pseudonym Louis, told the court he was just 17 when Kelly promised him fame in exchange for sex.

He said the singer had lured him to his Chicago-area home in 2007 with a false offer to help him with his music career.

Kelly had asked him “what I was willing to do for music”, he told the court, and said he had replied: “I’ll carry your bags… anything you need I’ll be willing to do.”

According to Louis’s testimony, Kelly responded: “That’s not it, that’s not it”, before asking him if he ever fantasised about having sex with men.

He said that Kelly had “crawled down on his knees and proceeded to give me oral sex”, adding: “I wasn’t into it.”

He also said that, on another occasion, Kelly had snapped his fingers to summon a naked girl to perform a sex act on himself and Louis.

The teenage boy continued to see the R&B star because “I really wanted to make it in the music industry”, the court was told.

The witness who didn’t testify due to panic attacks

Kelly threatened to “f*** up” one of his victims before assaulting her in an incident that was recorded in 2008, it emerged in court documents submitted during the trial.

The filing stated that prosecutors wanted the woman from Florida, referred to as a “Jane Doe”, to testify at Kelly’s trial, but decided against it after she “started to have panic attacks and appeared to have an emotional breakdown” as she listened to the tapes.

While the recordings were played in court, there was no audio for the press and public. A video feed showed Kelly not wearing the headphones that would have allowed him to listen to the evidence.

On tape, the singer was said to be heard saying: “If you lie to me, I’m going to f*** you up.” In a second tape, he was allegedly heard threatening her and accusing her of stealing his Rolex watch.

“You better not ever… take from me again or I will be in Florida and something will happen to you,” he said, according to the documents. “You understand what I’m telling you?”

Kelly allegedly told his victims he had cameras and other recording devices “everywhere” in his Chicago studio and other locations.

‘I was scared. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed’

One witness was a former radio station intern when she met Kelly in 2003, after contacting his representatives about an interview. She told the court she was locked in a darkened room and believes she was drugged and assaulted by Kelly while she was unconscious.

“I was sexually assaulted,” the woman, now 39, told jurors. “It wasn’t something I invited.”

Testifying without using her real name, she said she was a 21-year-old single mother from Salt Lake City, in Utah, when she approached Kelly’s entourage.

She was invited to fly to Chicago and meet Kelly at his music studio, all paid for by the singer, the court was told. When she arrived, she was greeted by someone who made her sign a non-disclosure agreement, demanded personal information about her family and surprised her by asking if she “needed protection” – specifically, a condom, she said.

“No, I’m not here for that,” was her response.

The woman said she was told to wait alone for Kelly in a windowless room. When she tried to step out, she discovered that the door was locked from the outside and that, after banging on the door with no response, she needed permission from Kelly to go to the bathroom or anywhere else, she said.

“I was scared. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed,” she told the court.

Two days went by before she was finally given something to eat, she told the court. After passing out, she says she awoke to find someone had taken off her clothes and that she saw Kelly pulling up his trousers.

It felt like another few days passed before she was put on a flight home, the court heard.

As she left, an employee warned her not to “f*** with Mr Kelly”, she said.

What now?

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 also facing sex abuse charges brought in Illinois and Minnesota – to which he has also pleaded not guilty.

So there could be more allegations to come.

Entertainment

With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex’s new Netflix series

Published

7 hours ago

March 4, 2025

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With Love, Meghan: What we learnt from Duchess of Sussex's new Netflix series

The Duchess of Sussex’s lifestyle series premiered this morning – in which she talks about her life in California, her time spent living in Argentina and her love of food.

With Love, Meghan – an eight-part series on Netflix – had been delayed from a January release due to the Los Angeles wildfires.

The episodes, which last about 30 minutes each, feature a host of celebrity friends along with a few cameos from her husband, Prince Harry.

From her first jobs growing up to what she was like on the Suits set, here are some things we learnt about the duchess.

‘I’m Sussex now’

One of Meghan’s guests is The Office star Mindy Kaling, who she bonds with over their lives as toddlers’ mums while putting together a tea party in the garden.

As they put sandwiches together for the tea, Meghan talks about her love of Jack In The Box – a classic US fast-food chain, to which Kaling responds: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack In The Box and loves it.”

The duchess laughs and says: “It’s funny, you keep saying Meghan Markle, you know, I’m Sussex now.

“You have kids, and you go, ‘now I share my name with my children’… I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go ‘this is our family name, our little family name’.”

Similarities with Archie

During episode four, the duchess goes on a hike with her friend Delfina Blaquier, who is married to Argentinian polo star Nacho Figueras, and together they have a picnic with homemade focaccia bread.

The duchess reveals how she passed time during her childhood – and the similar traits her son, Archie, has: “As a kid, I was taking a bag of tea from the drawer in my house, putting it in a mason jar or probably an empty jar that once held spaghetti sauce and putting it in the sun, and sitting there… waiting for it to change colour.

“Funny enough, which Archie does now.”

Days before the show aired, in an interview with People magazine, the duchess said Archie had told her: “Mama, don’t work too hard” during filming.

She added the five-year-old helped with the clapperboard while visiting the set with his sister Lilibet and Harry.

Life in Argentina

The two friends met through their husbands – “The moment we met, we bonded over our love of the outdoors and being in nature. We always hike together whenever she’s in town. And sometimes we let our husbands join us,” Meghan says.

Reflecting on when they first met, Meghan says: “What’s so funny is, I remember when we first met, and you were like: ‘Wait a minute, you speak Argentinian Spanish?’ But it’s such a pretty language because it sounds so musical.”

Her friend says: “When you started speaking Spanish and I recognised the Argentinian, I was blown away, because I didn’t know that…”

“That I’d lived there,” Meghan responds.

She adds: “When I lived in Argentina, I think the reason I loved it so much is because it reminded me of California in a lot of ways. Where you have the mountains and you have this joy of life and the joy of being outside.

“I was only there for a few months interning at the US Embassy, but I loved it.”

First jobs in doughnut and yoghurt shops – and some more childhood memories

In episode five, as Meghan hosts long-time friends, former Suits co-star Abigail Spencer and Kelly McKee Zajfen, she says that her first job was at Humphrey Yogart, a frozen yoghurt shop in Los Angeles playfully named after actor Humphrey Bogart.

That came after she told chef Roy Choi in episode three, as she presented him with doughnuts she prepared for him, that she once had a job at a doughnut shop.

“Doughnuts in general just remind me of my childhood,” she said.

“I once had a job at a little donut shop called Little Orbit Donuts. They made tiny, tiny, little mini donuts.”

She said she often helped them sell at craft venues, adding that doughnuts generally were a big part of her childhood.

“Growing up, driving down Highland to get to school, there was always a Yum Yum Donuts right there.”

“Highland and Melrose,” Choi clarifies.

“Exactly… is it still there?”

When Choi says it is, she responds: “Oh my god. I should go back in.”

In another episode, Kaling asks whether Meghan began cooking at home or picked it up later. Meghan replies: “I was a latch-key kid so I grew up with a lot of fast food and also a lot of TV tray dinners.

“It feels like such a different time but that was so normal with the microwavable kids meals.”

Life in Montecito house

The lifestyle show, which was filmed in a California farmhouse rather than in her Montecito house, features her describing her every day life – including how it is a “daily” task to pick fruit when it’s in season at her home.

Episode one Hello Honey! features Meghan’s friend Daniel Martin as she prepares a “thoughtful guest basket”.

It begins with her harvesting honey from bees, saying: “The biggest thing is keeping a low tone – talk in our bee voice.”

With the help of a beekeeper, she talks about “trying to stay in the calm of it because it’s beautiful to be this connected”.

Harry is the king of eggs

When asked by Kaling about how best to season eggs, the duchess says: “I have a family, a husband, who no matter what meal is put in front of him before he tastes it puts salt on, so I try to under salt.”

Harry himself, it is later revealed, is something of an egg connoisseur.

Speaking to two close friends in a later episode, she says “H” is a “great cook” and makes “the best scrambled eggs”.

She further praises him by saying he generally makes “a really good breakfast”.

Bacon was the subject of discussions on more than one occasion during the series, with Meghan saying that whenever she cooks it the kitchen “becomes full of husband and three dogs”.

“It’s not my perfume that’s bringing them all in,” she jokes.

What the duchess was like during Suits

Meghan’s days of playing paralegal Rachel Zane in popular drama Suits came to an end in 2018, the year she married Harry.

But she has clearly remained close with co-star Abigail Spencer, who played Dana Scott.

In episode five, as the pair sat in Meghan’s garden alongside Kelly McKee Zajfen, Spencer reflected on what Meghan was like during the Suits days.

She said Meghan was “the head of morale on the show,” to which Meghan thanked her and added: “I liked to plan fun for everyone.”

Heart-warming moments of Meghan with beloved beagle

The whole series ends with a tribute to Meghan’s late dog, Guy, who featured prominently in several episodes.

One morning, the duchess is seen making bone-shaped peanut butter biscuits for the rescue beagle, who died shortly after filming wrapped, saying you can make them with leftover bacon from breakfast.

She admitted there was “never” any leftovers in her house because “we eat a lot of it” – another reference to the Sussexes love of bacon.

“I would do anything for Guy, and he knows it,” she then says. “He can have whatever he wants ’cause he is whatever kind of guy you need him to be depending on the day. My sweet guy, my silly guy, my saucy little guy. Always my spoiled guy.”

Later, as she hands him a peanut butter cookie, she adds: “They provide us with unconditional love, so they get unconditional peanut butter dog biscuits. Why not?”

The Sussexes also have two other dogs – another rescue beagle named Mia and a black Labrador called Pula, who is seen trying to steal some of Meghan and her guests’ food at various points during the series.

Meghan’s ‘next chapter’

In the eighth and final episode, called Feels Like Home, Meghan prepares for Prince Harry to make an appearance.

She is putting together a brunch for family and friends to celebrate the “next chapter” in her life.

Sharing details of how she envisages the so-called “next chapter”, Meghan, wearing a blue maxi dress and putting the finishing touches to a spread of food outdoors, says: “Of course, my husband will be here, my mum will be here, my best friend since college, my community having a brunch in the sunshine with the people that I love, celebrating this next chapter of my life.”

Entertainment

Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years dies

Published

12 hours ago

March 4, 2025

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Dolly Parton's husband of nearly 60 years dies

Dolly Parton’s husband – who she married in a secret ceremony aged just 20 – has died.

The country music star’s website said Carl Dean died on Monday in Nashville.

Parton said in a statement: “Carl and I spent many wonderful years together. Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Dean was the inspiration behind Jolene, one of her biggest hits.

She said she wrote the song after a flirty bank clerk seemed to take an interest in him.

“She got this terrible crush on my husband,” Parton told NPR in 2008.

“And he just loved going to the bank because she paid him so much attention.

“It was kinda like a running joke between us… So it’s really an innocent song all around, but sounds like a dreadful one.”

The pair met outside the Wishy Washy launderette, where Parton was doing her washing, the day she moved to Nashville at age 18.

“I was surprised and delighted that while he talked to me, he looked at my face (a rare thing for me),” Parton said in 2016.

“He seemed to be genuinely interested in finding out who I was and what I was about.”

Parton said her record company had asked her to wait to get married but the couple tied the knot two years later, in May 1966.

Only her mother, the preacher and his wife were in attendance at the ceremony – held out of state so local papers wouldn’t report it.

Dean owned a paving business and famously shunned the limelight, so was very rarely seen in public with the star.

“A lot of people say there’s no Carl Dean, that he’s just somebody I made up to keep other people off me,” Parton joked in a 1984 interview with AP.

The couple never had any children, but he is survived by his brother and sister.

Entertainment

Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

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1 day ago

March 3, 2025

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Oscars 2025: Anora sweeps the Academy Awards with five awards including best picture

Anora has dominated the Academy Awards, winning five gongs including best picture.

The film’s star, Mikey Madison, who plays a sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch, took home the best actress award – a win that was not a total upset, but many had expected Demi Moore to scoop the prize for her performance in The Substance.

Anora filmmaker Sean Baker was named best director, and used his acceptance speech to make a plea for audiences to support cinemas, which he said were “a vital part of our culture” and at risk of being lost.

Both also thanked sex workers who consulted on the film, saying they could never have made it without them.

Anora also won the Oscars for best original screenplay and best editing. Winning all four awards he was up for, Baker tied with Walt Disney’s record for the most Oscar wins by a single person in a single night – although Disney won his awards for multiple works, rather than a single film as Baker has done.

Adrien Brody won the best actor Oscar for playing Hungarian architect Lazlo Toth in architectural epic The Brutalist.

It was his second Academy Award win in the category some 22 years after his first, for The Pianist back in 2003.

Accepting his award in a lengthy speech, he paid tribute to his partner Georgina Chapman, who he said had “re-invigorated” his “self-worth” and “sense of value”.

Best cinematography also went to The Brutalist directror Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic, which also took home the prize for best original score.

Papal thriller Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, took just one award, for best adapted screenplay.

Kieran Culkin took the first award of the night, best supporting actor, for his role in comedy drama A Real Pain, while the best supporting actress prize was won by Emilia Perez star Zoe Saldana, her first Oscar win and nomination.

One of the highest-grossing actresses ever, she cried out “Mommy, mommy”, on stage, explaining her entire family was there with her. She became tearful at the end of her speech as she spoke of being “a proud child of immigrant parents”.

Announced by Mick Jagger, best song went to Emilia Perez’s El Mal (which translates as “Evil”), while the prize for costume design went to Wicked’s Paul Tazewell – who became the first black man to receive the award. The Wizard Of Oz prequel also won best production design.

Brazilian director Walter Salles won best international feature for Portuguese-language film I’m Still Here, set in the 1970s in the midst of the Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.

A word-of-mouth hit, the film’s Brazilian star Fernanda Torres has gone from a relative unknown to a much-talked-about actress in the US in the last few months.

Make-up and hairstyling was awarded to body horror The Substance, a film which showcased extreme prosthetics, make-up and gore throughout. It was the film’s only win of the night.

The documentary categories went to The Only Girl In The Orchestra and No Other Land – made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective – for short film and feature film respectively.

Accepting the prize, it’s makers Basel Dra and Yuval Abraham made a political plea to the US: “The foreign policy in this country is helping to block [the path of peace]. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”

Best sound and best visual effects went to Dune: Part Two, directed by Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve.

A night where independent and unusual filmmaking was rewarded, best animated feature went to Latvian computer-generated film Flow, while best animated short film was won by Iranian entry The Shadow Of The Cypress. Both international productions are dialogue-free.

Live action short film went to I’m Not A Robot, a study in an AI-fueled identity crisis.

During the ceremony’s in memoriam section, Morgan Freeman paid tribute to two-time Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, who was found dead in his home along with his wife and dog earlier this week.

A video montage honoured Academy members who have passed away over the last year, including British stars Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Joan Plowwright and Donald Sutherland, and US performers James Earl Jones, Kris Kristofferson and David Lynch.

There was also a moving segment honouring late music producer Quincy Jones, led by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg and featuring rapper Queen Latifah.

Sky News is livestreaming the Vanity Fair and Sir Elton John after-party red carpets following the ceremony. Catching the Oscar-winners as they party the night away, join us there from 6am.