The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Documentary sheds light on R. Kelly’s checkered past
Lifetime miniseries features interviews with his accusers.
For more than 20 years, R&B singer R. Kelly has been dogged by allegations involving underage women, a period packed with lawsuits, settlement agreements and alleged sex cults.
But the 51-year-old Grammywinning artist — whose real name is Robert Kelly — has never taken any genuine responsibility, denying any of his actions were illegal or against anybody’s will. And the one time he was placed on trial for having sex with a 14-year-old girl in 2008, he was acquitted, in part because the victim refused to cooperate with prosecutors.
Beginning today, Lifetime will air the three-day, six-hour documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which covers all this emotionally wrenching territory and more. It features several women who were involved with him, some going back to the 1990s, one as recently as 2017.
Family members, music industry insiders, activists, academics, medical professionals, former employees, journalists and celebrities such as Wendy Williams and John Legend weigh in as well.
Kelly didn’t respond to the documentarians when they reached out to him with questions.
Three Atlanta women are featured prominently in the documentary.
Lisa Van Allen was one of R. Kelly’s sexual exploits when she
was a 17-year-old in the 1990s and was forced to have threesomes with a girl she later found out was just 14.
She was one of the first women to come out publicly against Kelly during his 2008 trial in which he was accused of sleeping with the 14-year-old. But at the time, she felt alone.
With this documentary, “I’m hoping that people are more open to change, to making a difference now,” Van Allen said in an interview. “Back then, it was pretty much just me. It was my word against his. Now there are all these other girls coming out. Like with Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein, there’s power in numbers.”
Van Allen said Kelly fans attack her regularly on social media, but she is not deterred.
“Talking about this is like therapy,” she said. “I want to help others. And by getting it out, it helps me to move on.”
Atlanta resident Asante McGee, a former “super fan” of Kelly, was not a teenager when she met him in 2013. She was in her mid-30s, a fullgrown woman who had loved his music since she was 14. She traveled to multiple cities to see his concerts and when she moved to Atlanta in 2006 would attend club appearances he’d make at places such as the Velvet Room and Club Karma.
She eventually caught Kelly’s attention and had sex with him for the first time in Baton Rouge and enjoyed it. “Is this a dream?” she thought. For two years, she dated him, knowing full well it was not exclusive. She said during that time, he was mostly kind to her, wining and dining her.
But McGee — a remote customer service agent at the time — said she only became perturbed when he moved her into his Johns Creek mansion in May 2016. He quickly imposed rules. Most notably, she could not enter a room without knocking and getting a response. “I had to get his permission to eat, to leave my bedroom,” she said. He would get angry if he didn’t like what she wore. She was not allowed to talk to the other women outside his purview.
And she said he would summon her on occasion to what he called “the Black Room,” where she would have to submit to whatever sexual proclivities he desired.
She said she was in the house for only about a week in total before she left in disgust, noticing how young most of the other women were.
“My hope is this documentary will help people understand and recognize Robert for who he is,” McGee said, “and separate R. Kelly from Robert. He has a sickness and he needs help.” She said she is not surprised by the “victim shaming” from his fans who “choose to see what Rob wants them to see.”
Oronike Odeleye of Atlanta helped launch the #MuteRKelly campaign, pressuring concert promoters to cancel his concerts, holding protests outside of concerts and encouraging radio stations and streaming services to stop playing his music.
So far, Odeleye has had tangible success impacting his touring schedule. Several major concerts were nixed in cities such as his hometown of Chicago and New York. He was evicted from his two metro Atlanta homes in February 2018 for rental nonpayment. Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music stopped playing R. Kelly music on their curated playlists in 2018. Syndicated host Tom Joyner also removed R. Kelly music from his show, heard in Atlanta on Classix 102.9.
Locally, according to Mediabase 24/7, Kiss 104.1 has not spun an R. Kelly record since October. Until mid-December, Majic 107.5/97.5 still had two of his songs in regular rotation. V-103 has played several of his songs the past month.
He is also not actively recording music for RCA Records. His last regular album release was in 2015. He hasn’t had a single hit on the Billboard R&B charts since 2013. In July, he released a 19-minute song “I Admit,” in which he denied running a sex cult or being a pedophile.