R. Kelly may be one of the top-charting R&B artists of his generation. But he's also a man with a pocked personal history when it comes to allegations of assault, statutory rape, and other entanglements.
Last December, HuffPost Live journalist Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani tried to question him about the more sordid parts of his past, and the musician threw a mini-tantrum on air, eventually walking off the set. But he was considerably more forthcoming in an interview with GQ's Chris Heath, and spoke on record — and in greater depth than ever — about sensitive subjects, including his rumored marriage to an underage Aaliyah, his thoughts about the Bill Cosby rape accusations, his own childhood abuse, and his position on Dave Chapelle.
On his relationship with Aaliyah...
While he wouldn't admit that he married the rising star Aaliyah, Kelly did tell Heath that he was in love with her. "Uh, I would describe it as best friends. Deep friends. As far as we both loved music and wanted to be successful. She's a Capricorn, I'm a Capricorn, my momma a Capricorn, her daddy's a Capricorn, you know. It was just so much in common with each other," he explained, adding that he thinks the young star was in love with him as well. As for whether or not he thought he did anything wrong in their relationship? "Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's my answer forever: Absolutely not," he said. On the allegations against Bill Cosby...
“Well, my opinion on that is, I don't know what happened. I'm a fan of Bill [Cosby] from The Bill Cosby Show, of course — who's not? — and for me to give my opinion on something that I have no idea if it's true or not, all I can say is that it was a long time ago. And when I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there's something strange about it. That's my opinion. It's just strange.” On Dave Chapelle's now-iconic "Piss On You" parody... Turns out, Kelly is conveniently unclear as to who Dave Chapelle is and won't admit to recalling the sketch in any great detail. But is he into peeing on his sex partners? “Absolutely not.” And is he stressed out by the idea that people think he might be? Sort of: "“Well, I used to be, ‘Wow—seriously?’," he told Heath. "It made me feel terrible. But now I, honestly, don't think about it or could care one way or the other what people think about me. I have fans and I have family that love me, and I have my music, and I have my breath going in and out. I'm more than okay with who I am and who I have become today as a man, and I'm just moving on with my life, man, doing this music. I'm good.” On his own sexual abuse...
"I remember it feeling weird. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember closing my eyes or keeping my hands over my eyes. I remember those things, but couldn't judge it one way or the other fully," he explained, reflecting on the abuse he says occurred consistently for the better part of a decade, beginning when he was a child. "It became a regular thing. Every other day, every other week," he went on, saying that it went back "as far as I can remember." Heath asked Kelly when the abuse came to a stop. “When I started having a girlfriend, I felt really bad about it. Then I started getting older and knowing that's just not supposed to happen — family members. And I think it started getting scary for them because I just started acting really different about it, and I think it became a turnoff to them, and a scary thing.” But the musician also says that his abuser remained in his life, and is a blood relative; eight or nine years ago, he tried to broach the subject with this person. "Didn't want to talk about it. Didn't own up to it. Told me, ‘Sometime when you're kids, you think you've been through something, or did something, that you didn't do, probably was a dream.’ Things like that. But it was definitely not a dream.” To read the interview in its entirety, check out the story on GQ.com.
While he wouldn't admit that he married the rising star Aaliyah, Kelly did tell Heath that he was in love with her. "Uh, I would describe it as best friends. Deep friends. As far as we both loved music and wanted to be successful. She's a Capricorn, I'm a Capricorn, my momma a Capricorn, her daddy's a Capricorn, you know. It was just so much in common with each other," he explained, adding that he thinks the young star was in love with him as well. As for whether or not he thought he did anything wrong in their relationship? "Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's my answer forever: Absolutely not," he said. On the allegations against Bill Cosby...
“Well, my opinion on that is, I don't know what happened. I'm a fan of Bill [Cosby] from The Bill Cosby Show, of course — who's not? — and for me to give my opinion on something that I have no idea if it's true or not, all I can say is that it was a long time ago. And when I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there's something strange about it. That's my opinion. It's just strange.” On Dave Chapelle's now-iconic "Piss On You" parody... Turns out, Kelly is conveniently unclear as to who Dave Chapelle is and won't admit to recalling the sketch in any great detail. But is he into peeing on his sex partners? “Absolutely not.” And is he stressed out by the idea that people think he might be? Sort of: "“Well, I used to be, ‘Wow—seriously?’," he told Heath. "It made me feel terrible. But now I, honestly, don't think about it or could care one way or the other what people think about me. I have fans and I have family that love me, and I have my music, and I have my breath going in and out. I'm more than okay with who I am and who I have become today as a man, and I'm just moving on with my life, man, doing this music. I'm good.” On his own sexual abuse...
"I remember it feeling weird. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember closing my eyes or keeping my hands over my eyes. I remember those things, but couldn't judge it one way or the other fully," he explained, reflecting on the abuse he says occurred consistently for the better part of a decade, beginning when he was a child. "It became a regular thing. Every other day, every other week," he went on, saying that it went back "as far as I can remember." Heath asked Kelly when the abuse came to a stop. “When I started having a girlfriend, I felt really bad about it. Then I started getting older and knowing that's just not supposed to happen — family members. And I think it started getting scary for them because I just started acting really different about it, and I think it became a turnoff to them, and a scary thing.” But the musician also says that his abuser remained in his life, and is a blood relative; eight or nine years ago, he tried to broach the subject with this person. "Didn't want to talk about it. Didn't own up to it. Told me, ‘Sometime when you're kids, you think you've been through something, or did something, that you didn't do, probably was a dream.’ Things like that. But it was definitely not a dream.” To read the interview in its entirety, check out the story on GQ.com.
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