I didn’t do this stuff
Star weeps in TV interview
SOBBING and beating his chest, singer R Kelly denied being a serial sex predator who molests underage girls.
The R&B superstar, dogged for years by allegations of abuse, now faces up to 70 years in jail if convicted of 10 sex charges involving four alleged victims, three of them underage.
But in a TV interview on CBS in America, a tearful Kelly, 52, said all the rumours of him having sex with or abusing underage girls were not true.
He added: “Whether they’re old rumours, new rumours, future rumours, not true.”
Kelly has faced repeated claims that he kept women prisoner, took their phones and kept them from their families.
Asked about those stories, he replied: “That’s stupid!” He added: “Forget the blogs. Hate me if you want to, love me if you want. But just use your common sense.”
Kelly was cleared in 2002 of 21 child pornography charges involving a sex tape with an allegedly underage girl.
And he told interviewer Gayle King: “How stupid would it be for me, with my crazy past and what I’ve been through – ‘Oh right now I just think I need to be a monster, and hold girls against their will, chain them up in my basement, don’t let them eat, don’t let them out.’”
King persisted and Kelly hit back: “Stop it. Y’all quit playing! Quit playing! I didn’t do this stuff ! This is not me!”
Pounding his chest, he asked: “Are you all trying to kill me?”
Kelly is on bail after being charged in Chicago with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse. If guilty, he faces up to seven years on each count.
Two more instalments of the CBS interview have yet to air.
KELLY has been taken into custody in Chicago over unpaid child support, it emerged last night. He was taken from a city courtroom to the county jail.