This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Artist News
R Kelly says efforts to silence him are 30 years too late
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 24 May 2018
R Kelly has been filmed saying that the #MuteRKelly campaign is “too late” to silence him, to the cheers of friends. The comments were seemingly made in a Facebook Live video shared on 17 May, a portion of which was subsequently shared by sports and entertainment lawyer Exavier Pope.
“I got a million motherfuckers hating me, but 40 billion motherfuckers loving me”, says Kelly in the video, mildly exaggerating the number of motherfuckers in existence. “I’m gonna take this musical shit, and I’m gonna inject these motherfuckers with this musical, beautiful motherfucking shit. I am handcuffed … by my destiny”.
He goes on: “It’s too late, they shoulda did this shit 30 years ago. It’s too late. The music has been injected into the world … I wanna propose a toast to all the strong motherfuckers in here, cos motherfuckers like you is why I still continue to do what I do. I have a basketball mentality. As long as I’ve got the ball, the world is on defence”.
TMZ – which has become something of an R Kelly cheerleader of late, as campaigners have become more vocal against the musician – says it has spoken to sources who insist that the speech was entirely intended to state the strength of the musician’s musical legacy. Although, having watched the original broadcast on Facebook, Pope said that it was cut off after someone in the room said “if you’re recording this, you’ve gotta go”.
Companies associated with Kelly have been subject to increasing calls to cut ties with him of late, of course. This follows a number of new sexual abuse allegations made against him, which join numerous others made over the course of his career. Spotify recently announced that it would cease to include his music in its in-house playlists.
Earlier this week, a new lawsuit was filed against Kelly in New York by a woman who accuses him of sexual battery, false imprisonment and failure to disclose a sexually transmitted disease.
