Woman Files Complaint Agains R Kelly

The #MeToo reckoning is continuing to slowly engulf R. Kelly. In January, Lifetime premiered the documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, an overview of Kelly'due south life and career — and of the decades' worth of accounts that accuse him of having sexually abused immature women and children. (Kelly's lawyer has said the series is full of lies and has threatened to sue.)

In February, Kelly was officially charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual corruption against four victims, at to the lowest degree three of them minors. And in May, Kelly was charged with 11 more counts, including the far more serious charge of aggravated criminal sexual assail.

Now, Kelly faces 18 new counts, including kidnapping and child pornography.

Kelly has been accused of sexual relationships with minors going back to 1994, when he married xv-year-old pop star Aaliyah. (The marriage was annulled.) In the 25 years since then, he has been sued multiple times for inappropriate sexual contact with a pocket-sized (he settled out of court every time), and he was somewhen charged with creating kid pornography. (A jury found him not guilty on the grounds that they could non conclusively place the other figure in his infamous sex record as a kid.)

In 2017, he was defendant of creating an abusive "sex cult" of very young women, whom he allegedly isolates, brainwashes, and abuses physically and emotionally. Since the story broke, multiple women take added their ain testimonies of corruption at R. Kelly'southward easily, including his ex-wife. (Through a lawyer, Kelly has denied all accusations, saying he would "piece of work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and clear his name.")

Yet despite decades of lawsuits and allegations, Kelly's career marched steadily on. In 2017, he finished an loonshit tour with a few cancellations. In 2018, he toured with singer Charlie Wilson (in that location were some protests). His music appeared in Pitch Perfect three.

At Coachella in 2018, rapper Vince Staples repeatedly referred to Kelly every bit a "child molester" in an interview with Complex. And in our mail-#MeToo, mail-Time's Up, post-Harvey Weinstein world, and given the sheer volume of allegations against Kelly, information technology seems reasonable to heighten the question of why he's been able to continue working so much. But Staples's interviewer just giggled nervously and protested, "We can't ever talk near this guy. ... You're about to become me fired from Coachella. It'due south my beginning time here." Later, Staples tweeted that "R. Kelly people is looking for me."

That stasis appears to be irresolute. Most of the claims confronting Kelly were reiterated in a 2022 BBC Iii documentary, R Kelly: Sexual activity, Girls & Videotapes, and and then again in Lifetime's Surviving R. Kelly. And over the past two years, at least five members of Kelly's inner circumvolve accept left him. His banana, his accountant, his lawyer, and his rep have all said that they no longer piece of work for him, although none of them have gone into particular about their departures and all accept been supportive and gratis toward Kelly in their statements. His longtime musical accompanist, DJ Phantom, was less circumspect about his decision to go out Kelly in 2017: "I didn't know then what I know now," he said. "He'due south a shitbag."

Last spring, the Women of Color committee within Time's Upwards threw its weight behind the #MuteRKelly campaign, calling for anyone currently profiting from Kelly and his music to drop him, including Spotify, Ticketmaster, and Kelly'due south tape label, RCA. In January, RCA quietly dropped Kelly.

And now, Kelly has been officially charged with more than a dozen counts of sexual abuse and assault.

It'south possible that these latest developments hateful that he'due south about to face lasting consequences for those accusations. But if that's the case, those consequences took more than than 2 decades to reach him.

And despite everything, it's still possible that Kelly will continue on with his life and his career as usual. According to the Smash, Kelly's music saw a sixteen percent surge in Spotify streams after Surviving R. Kelly premiered.

There is a persistent vagueness to the way nosotros talk about R. Kelly that makes it possible to forget exactly what he'south been accused of, how often he's been accused, and how much evidence at that place is against him. And almost likely, that's because his accusers are overwhelmingly young black women and hence plain easy for America to ignore.

"The saddest fact I've learned is: Nobody matters less to our club than young black women," says Jim DeRogatis, the reporter who broke the R. Kelly story. "Nobody."

To try to combat that vagueness and the erasure that information technology makes possible, here is a timeline of all the accusations of sexual misconduct against R. Kelly.

Much of the chronology below is drawn from DeRogatis'southward invaluable reporting on the R. Kelly accusations, including his own immensely thorough timeline. DeRogatis's timeline covers the entire span of Kelly's life, including his major career milestones and unrelated legal issues, but I've narrowed the focus of this timeline to specifically cover the sexual misconduct accusations against Kelly.

Over the 25-year bridge of this timeline, a consequent pattern emerges. Over and over over again, Kelly is accused of the same beliefs: of targeting girls and very young women, isolating them, and controlling and abusing them. And after the dust from the accusation settles, Kelly goes on living his life with very few changes.

Hither, from Aaliyah to the alleged sex cult to the charges of aggravated criminal sexual corruption, are all the R. Kelly accusations.

Baronial 30, 1994: 27-year-old R. Kelly marries 15-yr-old Aaliyah

The '90s music sensation Aaliyah was Kelly'due south protégé. They met when she was 12 years old, and Kelly wrote and produced her first anthology in 1993. Information technology was titled Age Ain't Cypher b ut a Number. In 1995, Vibe mag published a copy of their union license, with 15-year-old Aaliyah falsely listing her age equally eighteen.

"Family members say Aaliyah thought it was all an elaborate 'game,' and she simply went along with it," the Chicago Sun-Times after reported, adding that the marriage license was reportedly obtained by Kelly's banana, using a simulated ID. "Inside hours, she realized what had happened, and she went to her family unit and sought their help."

The marriage was annulled in 1994, just months after the ceremony. In the settlement, co-ordinate to documents obtained by the Sun-Times, Aaliyah promises not to pursue further legal activeness because of "emotional distress caused past any attribute of her business organisation or personal relationship with Robert" or for "physical injury or emotional pain and suffering arising from any assault or bombardment perpetrated by Robert against her person."

1995: Kelly reportedly begins a relationship with underage Lizzette Martinez

In an interview with BuzzFeed published in May 2018, Martinez says she met Kelly at the mall when she was 17, and that he initiated a sexual relationship with her while aware of her age. She also says that he was physically calumniating to her and that he pressured her to perform some sexual acts against her volition. "Information technology was very controlled: what I wore, how I spoke, who my friends were, who I could bring effectually," she says. Kelly has not yet commented on Martinez'south story.

December 24, 1996: the first of the known lawsuits accusing Kelly of sex with underage girls is filed

Tiffany Hawkins filed suit against Kelly and his record, publishing, and direction companies on Christmas Eve 1996. The suit alleged that he initiated a sexual relationship with her when she was when he was 24 and she was 15, and that he pushed her to participate in group sexual practice with him and other underage girls. Kelly allegedly met Hawkins at his old Chicago high schoolhouse, Kenwood Academy, when he visited the school to reminisce most having gotten his start there and to inspire current students to follow their dreams.

Hawkins sought $x million in damages, only Kelly countersued, challenge that Hawkins was attempting to blackmail him with a false paternity claim. (In that location is no paternity merits in Hawkins'due south lawsuit.) Hawkins settled for $250,000, and her suit went largely unnoticed until 2000, when DeRogatis began to investigate the R. Kelly case for the Chicago Sun-Times.

December 21, 2000: the Chicago Lord's day-Times publishes the first newspaper commodity investigating Kelly's alleged sex crimes

In a lengthy and thoroughly reported story, the Chicago Sunday-Times outlined the facts of the Tiffany Hawkins lawsuit and Kelly's wedlock to Aaliyah. "Chicago police twice have investigated allegations that Kelly was having sexual activity with an underage female but dropped the investigations because the girl would not cooperate," the story noted. No i from Kelly'due south camp provided comment for the article.

January 2001: the kickoff R. Kelly sex tape emerges

An bearding source sent a videotape of what appeared to be Kelly having sex with a very young woman to Jim DeRogatis at the Sun-Times. DeRogatis handed the tape over to the Chicago constabulary, but the police, unable to place the woman in the tape, did not accuse Kelly. Bootleg copies of the record circulated throughout Chicago. As far as we tin can tell, Kelly has non publicly commented on this record.

August 2001: the second R. Kelly lawsuit is filed

Tracy Sampson, a former intern at Epic Records, filed a lawsuit confronting Kelly claiming that he initiated a sexual human relationship with her when she was 17. DeRogatis quotes at length from her lawsuit:

I was lied to by him. … I was coerced into receiving oral sex from a daughter I did not want to have sex with. I was often treated as his personal sex object and bandage aside. He would tell me to come to his studio and take sexual activity with him, then tell me to go. He frequently tried to command every aspect of my life including who I would see and where I would go.

The suit was settled out of court. The size of the settlement is unknown. Kelly denied all wrongdoing.

February 8, 2002: the second R. Kelly record emerges

An anonymous source sent another videotape to the Chicago Police Department, this one showing Kelly engaging in sex acts with and urinating on what appears to be a immature girl while instructing her to call him "Daddy." A witness identified the daughter and said she would accept been fourteen at the time the videotape was made.

Kelly, who was scheduled to perform at the Winter Olympics the same calendar month that the tape emerged, denied in a radio interview that the tape showed him having sex with a pocket-sized. "It's crap, and that's how we're going to treat it," he said. "The reason these things are happening I really do believe is because of the fact that I didn't fall back every bit far every bit blackmail was concerned. I didn't requite them any money."

Homemade copies of the record circulated across the country, and police somewhen indicted Kelly on 21 counts of child pornography.

April 29, 2002: Kelly is sued by a third woman …

Patrice Jones said in her lawsuit that Kelly had sex with her when she was 16 years old, and that when she became pregnant, he coerced her into having an abortion. Kelly settled the lawsuit out of court for an unknown sum. His lawyer described the suit every bit "a collection of half-truths, distortions and outright lies."

May 4, 2002: … and a 4th

Xxx-3-year-former Montina Woods said that Kelly taped their sexual run into without her knowledge and and then distributed the tapes. Kelly, once again, settled out of court for an unknown sum. A spokesperson from his military camp described the suit as "ridiculous" and "nonsensical."

2005: Kelly's second wife, Andrea Lee, files a restraining order against him alleging corruption

Kelly married dancer Drea Kelly, née Andrea Lee, in 1996. In 2005, she petitioned for and received an emergency restraining order against him, citing concrete abuse, harassment, stalking, and interfering with her personal liberty.

In her petition, Drea wrote that when she asked for a divorce, Kelly pinned her down and hit her repeatedly, yelling, "Don't you go out me! Why are you lot leaving me?" She added that he repeatedly "snapped" at her when she was near a man, including the fourth dimension a man showed upwards in the groundwork of a picture she took with her kids.

"My wife and I had a heated argument, and we are now in the process of working it out," Kelly said in a public argument. "We hope that the press and public will give u.s.a. the time and privacy we need to resolve this very personal situation."

One time the emergency club expired, Drea asked for information technology to exist dismissed, and she refused to comment on the incident in the printing, referring to information technology only as "old news."

October 4, 2006: Kelly is sued by his mentor and associate

Longtime Kelly associate Henry "Love" Vaughn said in a lawsuit that Kelly attacked him at a political party at his firm, and backed out of paying Vaughan for his work on a song besides. In an interview with the Sun-Times, Vaughn claimed Kelly attacked him subsequently he remarked that Kelly's vii-year-old girl was dancing "grown-up fashion," saying, "She was all dressed up with tight jeans and makeup on, a seven-yr-one-time girl, dancing on acme of the pool tabular array. Information technology was ridiculous. She told my lady, 'I'1000 having a testify side by side calendar week; when you come, bring $100.'"

Kelly's lawyer once again described the lawsuit every bit "a pathetic collection of half-truths, distortions and outright lies."

May 2008: the trial of R. Kelly

More than five years subsequently the news of the alleged kid sexual activity record broke, Kelly faced trial on xiv counts of child pornography. (In the years since he was indicted, Kelly'due south lawyers had successfully knocked out seven of the original charges.) The trial lasted for just over a calendar month, and neither Kelly nor the girl on the tape testified. Although 15 witnesses for the prosecution took the stand to identify the girl in question, the jury concluded that they could not be positive of the daughter's identity and thus could not be sure that she was underage. Subsequently one 24-hour interval of deliberations, the jury found Kelly not guilty. Kelly bankrupt down in tears in the court.

After the trial, Kelly spent nearly 10 years tending to his career, headlining musical festivals and staying away from scandal. And so …

July 2017: news of the alleged sexual activity cult breaks

Last summer, BuzzFeed News reported that R. Kelly was allegedly holding multiple young women in compounds on his properties beyond the country, decision-making their every movement. Co-ordinate to BuzzFeed's sources, the women were required to call Kelly "Daddy"; ask his permission before going anywhere, including the bath; wear jogging suits and then that other men could not run into their bodies; and turn and confront the wall when other men entered the room. BuzzFeed further reported that Kelly allegedly coerced the women into grouping sex, videotaped them, and crush them when they disobeyed him.

But the women currently living with Kelly have repeatedly said that they are happy and that they are with him of their own free will. And because they are all 18 or older, police accept non intervened.

Through a lawyer, Kelly issued a argument denying the BuzzFeed report. "Mr. Robert Kelly is both alarmed and disturbed at the contempo revelations attributed to him," the statement reads. "Mr. Kelly unequivocally denies such allegations and will work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and clear his name."

August 2017: 1 of R. Kelly'southward accusers breaks her nondisclosure agreement to speak out

Jerhonda Footstep says she began a human relationship with Kelly in 2009, when she was 16, and that the details of their relationship friction match the details reported about Kelly's alleged "sex cult": At first Kelly courted her, she said, and then he isolated her, and so he began to abuse her. After their relationship ended, she sued Kelly for damages, and says he settled with her out of court in exchange for her signing an NDA. Pace said she decided to suspension the terms of her settlement final summertime in gild to help the women even so with Kelly. "If I tin speak out and I tin can aid them get out of that situation, that's what I volition do," she said.

A representative for Kelly denied the accusations, proverb, "The allegations against Mr. Kelly are simulated, and are being made by individuals known to exist dishonest. Information technology is clear these standing stories are the result of the effort of those with personal agendas who are working in concert to interfere with and impairment his career. Mr. Kelly again denies any and all wrongdoing and is taking advisable legal activity to protect himself from ongoing defamation."

October 2017: another Kelly accuser backs up the sex cult story

Kitti Jones says her relationship with Kelly also mirrors the accounts of the sex cult story. Kelly got her to quit her job and move in with him, Jones said concluding October, and so he began to control her, and then he began to abuse her. Kelly denied all the accusations.

April 9, 2018: an unnamed woman files a criminal complaint against Kelly

An unnamed adult female says she spent viii months in a relationship with Kelly when she was 19, and that he was grooming her to join his sex cult, the Huffington Mail reports. According to the woman'due south lawyer, at i point Kelly told her that "she would have to sign a contract and offer collateral information virtually herself and her family unit for Kelly's protection."

The woman says Kelly intentionally infected her with an STD over the grade of their relationship. She's filed a criminal complaint against him, citing charges of "unlawful restraint, furnishing booze and illegal drugs to a small-scale, and aggravated assault (via the referenced intentional STD infection)." Her lawyer says she is preparing a federal civil lawsuit against Kelly. Kelly has denied the accusations.

November 20, 2018: Kelly's ex-wife Drea Kelly accuses R. Kelly of domestic violence

Kelly and his 2nd wife Drea Kelly (née Andrea Lee) divorced in 2009, but rumors have long flourished that dark secrets lurked in their marriage.

In 2003, Drea's mother Gerri Cruz told journalists that she feared that R. Kelly was brainwashing her girl. "The last fourth dimension I talked to her was over two years ago on the telephone," Cruz said. "She was crying hysterically and violently."

Cruz said she asked the police to check out Kelly'due south house to brand sure that Drea was all right, but nothing came of it.

"I don't know if my child is under the influence. I don't know if she is being controlled. I don't know if people are watching her. I don't know if she is existence brainwashed," Cruz said.

Drea denied that she was being kept abroad from her family. "We live right here in Chicago. How could you not know where I am? It's not every bit if I am overseas," she said in an interview with Essence in 2009.

Earlier reports in the Chicago Sun-Times said that Kelly's associates referred to Drea every bit "Puppydog," and that she was "required" to knock earlier inbound a room in the couple's shared firm.

In Nov 2018, Drea spoke out publicly for the first time about the abuse she says she has experienced at Kelly's easily. She told ABC News that Kelly emotionally, physically, and sexually driveling her, and that when they were married, she thought he might kill her. She says she decided to come frontwards after stories of Kelly's alleged sex cult began to emerge.

"All these allegations start comin' out over again and I'm like, 'God, OK. I don't think I can take this one,'" she said.

Kelly's representatives declined to annotate on Drea's statements.

January 3, 2019: Surviving R. Kelly premieres on Lifetime

Lifetime's Surviving R. Kelly consists of iii ii-hour installments. The first is focused on Kelly'south babyhood and early on music career — and the sexual abuse he suffered. The second is focused on his 2008 criminal trial. The tertiary is focused on the 2022 "sexual practice cult" story. While the serial mostly reiterates information that was already on the record, information technology does include accounts from multiple members of Kelly's inner circle who are speaking out in public for the commencement time, and its arrival was marked by outrage.

In December 2018, a private screening of the docuseries was evacuated and then canceled following a gun threat. "The starting time affair that came to my mind — and I can't speak for anyone else — was that [R. Kelly] had this shut downward," Drea Kelly told Rolling Stone after the evacuation. "I believe it was somebody continued to him." And on the 24-hour interval of the premiere, TMZ published a letter from Kelly's lawyer threatening to sue Lifetime over the series.

February fourteen, 2019: a third sex activity tape emerges

Both the New Yorker and CNN reported that law enforcement officials in Illinois had received a copy of a record that appeared to testify Kelly engaging in sex acts with a xiv-year-old girl.

February 22, 2019: Kelly is charged with x counts of aggravated criminal sexual corruption

Prosecutors in Cook County, Illinois filed x counts of aggravated sexual abuse against Kelly. He was arraigned in March.

May thirty, 2019: Kelly is charged with eleven additional counts, including aggravated criminal sexual attack

Iii months later filing 10 charges against Kelly, Cook County, Illinois filed an boosted eleven charges against him. The new charges include aggravated criminal sexual assault, which is considered more serious than the sexual abuse with which Kelly was previously charged and which can be punished by up to 30 years in prison.

July 11 – 12, 2019: Kelly faces 18 new counts, including kidnapping and child pornography

Cook County, Illinois filed an additional 13 charges confronting Kelly on July 11, including charges of kid pornography. The following day, he received v boosted federal sexual practice law-breaking charges, including charges of kidnapping and forced labor in New York.

The sheer volume of accusations Kelly has fielded since 1994 is astonishing, and possibly it offers its ain answer as to why he'due south been able to live his life with few consequences. In a sense, his fans take been inoculated. They've been listening to accusations against Kelly for 25 years, and they've been listening to Kelly maintain his innocence for merely as long. In 2019, ignoring the persistent allegations against Kelly is simply part of being an R. Kelly fan.

This article was originally published in April 2018. Vox has continued to update information technology equally more information comes to light.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/4/25/17248084/r-kelly-sexual-misconduct-allegations-timeline