The music critic began reporting on the star’s abuse of Black women and girls back in 2000 – and he kept going for 20 years. Why were his revelations ignored for so long?
It all began with the bodyguards, and the balled-up pieces of paper. So many pieces of balled-up paper. The bodyguards pressed them into the hands of teenage athletes and aspiring singers and girls on their way home from prom. They kept slipping them into warm, young hands even after their boss, the R&B artist R Kelly, had been indicted for producing child abuse images in 2002, and acquitted in 2008.
On the paper was R Kelly’s phone number. The underage teenage girls would contact Kelly in the hope he would help them in their careers, or because they liked his music, or even just out of youthful curiosity: would he text back? None had any clue of the horror that would unfold. Kelly raped and sexually abused dozens of them. He forced them to live according to degrading restrictions, inflicted physical violence upon them, and even, if reports are to be believed, forced them to eat faeces if they displeased him.