As we proceed with Hitsville’s fabulous popular feature R. Kelly SexFacts™, I wish to address the concerns of those who have written in to ask: But, what can we do to help R. Kelly get the help he so sorely needs?

… that is, after the city of Chicago puts his ass in jail and throws away the key?

Kelly, new readers will want to know, is supposed to go on trial in Chicago next month, on child sex charges stemming from a videotape that shows him having sex with and doing all sorts of other disgusting things to a girl police say was 13 or 14 at the time.

Subtlety being what it is on the internets, Hitsville wants to make it plain that R. Kelly SexFacts™ is a work of press criticism. Which is to say, while some writing about Kelly makes some sidelong mention of his “legal problems,” too much of the coverage, either from plain laziness or a misguided sense of discretion, don’t tell readers the extent of Kelly’s fairly well documented problems.

It’s hard to believe that other stars have agreed to work with him; harder still to believe that the courts are still letting Kelly be in the same room with young girls, much less perform in front of them; and simply amazing that it has taken Chicago five years to get a case with filmed evidence of the crime in front of a jury.

So, anyway, in answer to the question: You could make sure your local paper or web site is familiar with the public record on Kelly.

And remember: R. Kelly SexFacts™ isn’t innuendo: It’s all based on reporting from the few reputable outlets that have bothered to tell people about him.

Kelly’s manager, Barry Hankerson, left the singer’s employ in 1998, writing a letter telling Kelly’s label and associates that the singer “needed psychiatric help for his compulsion to pursue underage girls.” This was years after Kelly married Hankerson’s underaged niece, the singer Aaliyah.

After the video of him having sex with a 14-year-old came to light, according to GQ, Kelly grabbed his “spiritual advisor,” the Rev. James Meeks, of Chicago’s Rainbow Coalition, and went to a Chicago church to sing for kindergarteners.

There are actually three R. Kelly sex tapes! There’s the one with the girl that is at the center of the case; another of an adult woman, who is suing Kelly for filming her without her knowledge; and a third of another young girl, who as yet has not been identified. Allegation #9.

On one of his CDs, Kelly thanks the girl who has been identified as being on one of his sex tapes. Kelly describes her as his “goddaughter”!

To R. Kelly, the oversight of a child’s religious upbringing is not complete until he’s urinated in her mouth.

And filmed it.

After Kelly was arrested for making that videotape, his label, Jive Records, released a statement that said: “R. Kelly has been with Jive Records for 11 years, and we fully support him and his music.”

Kelly or his representatives have said a) that it is not he in the video; b) that it is he but that the video was faked; and c) that it is he but the girl is over 18. One suspects at the trial his attorney will at some point take refuge in a Maxwell Smartian, “Would you believe he has a long-lost twin brother….?”

In one of his infrequent interviews, this one on Primetime Live, Kelly was asked about these predilections. “For an older man to have sex with an underage girl—do you see that as immoral?” he was asked. “Rephrase the question,” Kelly said. The reporter said: “For an older man to have sex with an underage girl—someone under 17—do you see that as immoral, if they’re in love?” Kelly responded: “I really can’t be the judge of that.”

In an interview with Hip Hop Soul magazine, Kelly said, “I’m the Ali of today. I’m the Marvin Gaye of today. I’m the Bob Marley of today. I’m the Martin Luther King, or all the other greats that came before us.” When asked about the quote by a British writer, he replied: “I’m not saying I’m Martin Luther King. I’m still surprised it got taken out of context like that. I’m inspired by those people, I want to be like them. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming.”

Kelly married in 1996 and has three kids. When Essence magazine asked his wife if she believed in the charges against Kelly, she said: “C’mon. Who would believe all that? That’s why they call them allegations.”

Later, his wife had a protection order taken out against him; she said he had hit her after she told him she wanted to leave him. She later rescinded it but later got the divorce.

In 2006, Kelly’s brother Carey went on a radio show, Vibe.com reported, and said R. Kelly had skimped on their mother’s tombstone, because she had refused to leave the siblings’ step-father: “This was the man who raised us when our dad walked away like a coward. My mom didn’t leave him, so when she died, her tombstone was only $500.” He also said Kelly was a bisexual, and had slept with a young relative. Allegation #10.

Another British interviewer wrote this after waiting six hours to talk to the singer: “[Kelly] circumnavigates every subject listlessly but a question about God catches his attention and he comes to life and launches into long, rambling answers, even if they bear only a vague relation to the questions. He never takes his dark glasses off. It is one of the most intriguingly bonkers 20 minutes I have ever spent with a celebrity, beating encounters with Stevie Nicks, Geri Halliwell, Yoko Ono and both Beckhams.”

R. Kelly on love: “You come to appreciate love more when you in love. Just as you like cereal until you come to your favorite kind of cereal and then you can appreciate cereal even more now, you know?”

Many of Kelly’s associates have been quoted saying they thought he was sick, or had an unconrollable compulsion to have sex with young girls. Perhaps the strongest evidence of this is that, while already under indictment for filming himself having sex with a child, he was found to have in one of his houses a digital camera with new photos of him having sex with an underaged girl. Allegation #11. One suspects that many six year olds, having been caught with one illicit chocolate chip cookie, would proceed posthaste to do away with another they had hidden underneath their pillow. Kelly, who associates have said is illiterate, can’t do simple math, and has an, um, redolent disdain for personal hygiene, also seems kinda dumb! The search that produced the camera was later disallowed by a judge, so Kelly was never prosecuted for those photos.

After the notorious videotape came to light, R. Kelly’s longtime publicist, Regina Daniels, had this to say when asked about the child sex charges: “There are a lot of people who are very much a player-hater of Robert. . . . All I can go by is the years that I’ve worked with him and what I’ve seen. I’m not saying anybody is beyond doing what I don’t see, but I’m not looking under the covers with him. All I know is that he has presented himself to me to be a respectable person and that is what I can go by.”

(Emphasis added.) It’s possible Daniels should have take the time to look under his covers. She might have found someone she recognized. Daniels quit earlier this year after discovering that Kelly was shtupping her daughter, who, thanks goodness, was 21 at the time.

After she left, Kelly’s camp had this to say:

It’s hard to take seriously the moral outrage expressed by George and Regina Daniels over R. Kelly’s relationship with Mr. Daniels’ adult daughter, Maxine.

On this, you have to agree with him.

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The original R. Kelly SexFacts™

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