Earlier this week, R. Kelly took to a national platform to plead his case against 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse on four victims, three of who are underage. The 52-year-old appeared on CBS This Morning to tell his side to journalist Gayle King, at times becoming emotionally overwhelmed.
Michael Avenatti, an attorney who’s representing two of the reported victims, discussed a recent video that alleges Kelly had sex with an underage girl. “He refers to her as only being 14 years of age,” Avenatti said to CBS. “These videos are bombshell pieces of evidence and they are the final nails in the coffin for R. Kelly as it relates to his decades of abuse.”
Within the interview, which debuted in full on Friday evening (March 8), Kelly said he’s steering clear of highlighting the headlines. “I’m not discussing nothing that is a rumor to me or anything,” he said. “My lawyers are handling all of that, but I guarantee you that I’m going to come out of this like I did before. And it’s not a bragging thing, it’s not an ego thing.”
King then asked Kelly about the allegations against him that were made public in Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly documentary, such as starving and physical abusing some of the women featured in the program.
“You can start a rumor on a guy like me or a celebrity just like that,” he said. “Thirty years in the business, relationships didn’t work out, all you have to do is push a button on your phone and say ‘So and so did this to me,’ ‘R. Kelly did this to me,’ and if you get any traction from that, if you’re able to write a book from that, if you’re able to get a reality show, one girl, then any girl that I had a relationship in the past that just didn’t work out, she can come and say the same exact thing.”
King then asked Kelly to explain his reason for recording and releasing July 2018’s “I Admit,” a song where the singer addresses claims of sex cult, pedophilia, and domestic violence. “First of all, no offense, but a two-year-old could understand it,” Kelly started off.
“But for all the people over two, was that your way of confessing?” King questioned.
“That question makes no sense, no offense, but what I’m saying is this: ’I Admit’ was me expressing my feelings about the things I was going through,” Kelly continued. “If you’re listening to it, you can hear exactly what I’m admitting.”
King then said she can see where people can interpret that song as a confession, to which Kelly said, “Well, that’s the problem now, everything I say people want to take it for what they want it to be. Because I’m so popular and who I am, people just love to take it and remix it and twist it.” The father-of-three is currently in jail on failure to pay over $161,000 in child support.
Watch the full interview here.