Surviving R. Kelly (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 3 - Episode #1.3 - full transcript
I was sickened by what I saw.
A lot of people saw
that pee tape.
It was circulating
in the streets.
I came across the one
with me, him,
and the 14-year-old.
My niece has the same hairstyle
she had
when she turned 14.
That was her, for sure.
And that was him, definitely.
Various sexual acts,
including urination, oral sex.
For him to do that to her...
Oh, man.
I took it and he never noticed
it was gone.
I just didn't know that
there was a point in time...
(crying):
where they were talk...
where they were talking...
about killing me.
I should have never introduced
her to him.
(crying): I should have never
introduced my family to him.
How dare you.
How dare you. (sniffles)
♪ ♪
CRAIG WILLIAMS: There was
a bedroom in the studio.
Girls everywhere.
15 to 17 to 18.
JOVANTE CUNNINGHAM:
We were young.
We were naive.
We were easily influenced.
It wasn't just me
that was young that he liked.
It wasn't a mistake
with Aaliyah.
He's sleeping
with this young girl.
GEM PRATTS: It's like, uh,
cattle that has four acres
and he's the only cattle
to graze; it's easy pickins'.
This is somebody who's written
this inspirational,
motivational song.
It was just massive.
JAMILAH LEMIEUX:
Can he really be the monster?
There's no moral clock there,
there's no gage.
I introduced my niece to Robert
and I saw her in the studio
by herself.
I would walk in like,
"What you doing here?"
LISA VAN ALLEN:
Him and I both were actually
having sex with her.
I was unaware, at that time,
of how young she was.
She was actually 14.
When I figured out that
I had had sex
with a 14-year-old,
um, it made me feel betrayed,
because he lied to me
and told me she was 16,
which would have been close
to my age.
And it also made me question
his motives.
I mean, the fact that he lied
about her age to me, told me
that he obviously knew
that wasn't okay
for her to be younger.
It-it made me feel, like,
sick to my stomach.
It made me feel disgusted.
I mean, my daughter is older
than she is now.
We didn't have sex
with her anymore
after I found out that she was
that much younger.
We had sex in his home twice.
I didn't see his wife
at the house,
but there was a-a situation, um,
between me, him
and the younger woman
where he did tell me
that his wife was upstairs
when we were in the--
I call it the Colorado Room,
the one with all the wood,
where the infamous sex tape
was filmed--
that room,
when we were down there,
one time, he did tell me
that she was upstairs.
PRODUCER: The girls that were
seeing the other side of him,
did you notice them?
Do you know how--
Were they young at that time?
No. He never brought
any of them around me.
He was never abusive to anybody
in front of me.
He was never a person that,
you know, like,
"Hey, do y'all hear that
in the room next door?
Is that fighting or something?"
I mean, we have to be realistic
about the story line, too.
Seeing some (bleep) like that,
you-- we really are not gonna
be together,
because you're showing me
up front who your monster is,
so I think that he strategically
did what he did with me.
He kept it away from me
for a reason.
It's like sometimes I often wish
I would have just known
up front; I really do.
I wish that I would have been
able to see the fullness
of the monster
I was dealing with
because it probably
would have saved me
years and years of pain.
It would have saved me
years of abuse.
It would have saved me years of
being alienated from my family
if I just would have known
up front
what the hell I'm dealing with.
LISA: When we first started
having sex,
Rob was behind the camera,
and he pretty much
would talk us through
the motions.
He would never ask me if, um,
it was okay to be filmed,
but he never hid the camera
or anything like that.
He would just pull-pull out
his tripod and his camera.
And he had the whole thing,
the lighting.
He'd set it up and he-he liked
to-to have control
of the situation
because he would tell you
what to do anyways
when you were having sex.
When he would put the camera up,
he'd just say,
"Make sure you're sitting
properly for the camera,
you know, for whatever angle."
And when he'd be done filming,
he'd just put it in his bag.
It was 2000,
around the same time
when I did the "I Wish" video
with him.
I was in the studio,
I was in the room,
and he left the bag
in the room with me.
And I just happened
to open the bag up,
and I started popping the tapes
in to see what was on them.
It was just a whole bunch
of different tapes with him
having sex with different young
girls, I guess, and women.
But I came across the one
with me, him
and the 14-year-old.
I watched it and,
as I fast-forwarded some,
I'd see other scenes
with just him and her,
without me.
Her face,
her chest, it's just,
wherever it was going,
he just was-- as if she was
a toilet, he was just peeing.
You know, just letting it
go wherever.
I thought it was gross and-and
weird and, uh, belittling.
In regards to the tapes,
Robert taping himself,
he's always did that.
Robert recorded everything.
I mean, R. Kelly tapes
his sexual encounters.
And he watched his own movies.
Abusers often want trophies
from their criminal acts,
so people will take things
and be able to place memories
and place maybe
even sexual feelings
on trophies that they've taken.
And it's power play. You get
to actively replay the act.
And when that's not enough,
then you make another tape.
LISA: When I saw it,
you know, it upset me,
and I didn't want him
to have possession of the tape
anymore, 'cause I was on it,
and I took it and kept it on me,
and when I got a chance
to go back to my hotel room,
I left it at my hotel room, and
he never noticed it was gone.
I actually didn't hold
onto the tape that long at all
because I was afraid that
he'd find out that I had it.
I had befriended a few
of his other artists,
and I actually asked one of them
if they could hold
the tape for me.
I remember the first time
we were in Detroit
and he came to me and he told me
about the videotapes.
He'd say, uh, "Man,
you got to help me, man.
"We got to pray, man,
'cause these videos, man,
I can't stop taping myself, man,
and..." and so we prayed.
I was privy, and shown,
um, videos
while I was still employed
and, you know, around, yes.
Um, I never saw
the-the bag's videos,
because I think
I would've been like,
"Man, what the hell
are you doing?"
You know?
"What-what are you doing?"
But yes, I-I did see several,
several videos.
DEMETRIUS:
You know, I didn't know
what was ahead, with those
tapes, but Robert did.
And he used to come to me
and he used to talk to me
about that.
He'd say, "Man, this is gonna
get me in trouble, man.
"I can't seem to stop.
This is gonna destroy me."
My name is Abdon Pallasch.
I was the legal affairs reporter
for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Our rock critic,
Jim DeRogatis,
got a fax laying out that there
was a relationship going on
with R. Kelly
and an underage girl.
Jim's the one
who really heard about
the dynamic that was going on
in which people in R. Kelly's
own circle were saying
that there was an issue there
where he was just hanging out
with young girls.
And Jim had gotten word
that some of these young women
had actually filed suit
against him.
You know, he approached me
as the legal affairs reporter,
you know,
"Can we check this out?"
And, you know,
I went and started
pulling lawsuits and,
sure enough, there were some.
And they generally settled
out of court.
But the allegations
were pretty explosive.
We started uncovering a series
of lawsuits that had been filed
and settlements that had been
reached with-with young women
that claim
that-that they had sex
with R. Kelly
when they were underage.
Our first story ran
December 21, 2000.
And it said that R. Kelly had
been sued by all these girls.
The suits, all added together,
seemed to show
a pattern of behavior
of him going after very young
girls for sexual relationships.
Immediately after
our story ran,
-we started getting calls.
-(phone ringing)
Other girls who said
this has happened to them,
from girls who said
it happened to their friends.
And we-we did
follow-up interviews
with as many of them
as we could.
A lot of them
were very reluctant and shy.
And a lot of times,
they wouldn't want to have
their names used or even have
their full stories appear.
These confidential settlements,
you know,
if the girls go public,
they-they lose the settlement.
You have to pay it back.
So there's
a limit to how much more
we're gonna get
from-from people
that had already been involved
in-in those sort of suits.
LEMIEUX:
These are five,
six-figure settlements.
And so, there we see
the beginning
of an ecosystem, right?
Like, there's a--
there's a system
of protecting R. Kelly
from accountability.
They said they were minors.
-Mm-hmm.
-You settled out of court.
-Yeah.
-In this country,
many people will assume
that means you were guilty.
Why'd you settle?
I really can't go into detail
about that particular thing,
because,
when I filed the lawsuit,
um, of course, I signed, uh,
a piece of paper
saying I couldn't discuss
-those particular people
in the situation.
-So there's a confidentiality
-agreement after the fact.
-Exactly. Exactly.
TARANA BURKE: The idea
that R. Kelly was using
nondisclosure agreements
to keep these young girls
and their families quiet,
that means that he is cognizant
of the kind of things
that he's doing
and he's trying to protect
himself on the front end.
And I think that this is
the thing that makes him, to me,
more the-- more of a predator.
LEMIEUX: You can get people
to sign NDAs.
We can make people go away
with a check.
We don't have to do this
in court,
in front of the cameras
and in front of,
you know, the paparazzi
and the tabloids.
We can make these things
go away.
His camp was very unhappy
and pushed back hard
and said it was all false.
But they couldn't point
to any part of the story
that was actually false,
'cause it was all taken
from court documents.
LISA: At this point, there were
tapes floating around.
I-I didn't want a sex tape of me
floating around
the Internet or on TV
or anything, so...
the only thing I could think of
doing at that point would be to,
um, to see if Rob could figure
out a way to get the tape back.
I actually ended up
contacting Rob
and told him
that I had took the tape.
He flew me back up to Chicago.
I told him that they probably
wouldn't just
give it back to me, that they
probably need something,
or whatever, to get it back.
And so he arranged for them
to be paid
to get him back his tape.
He had them take lie detector
tests, well, one of the guys,
and me, and, uh, I passed,
and the guy did not
because he was lying, he said
that he didn't make any copies,
and he actually did.
So, um, he ended up giving,
you know, like, a little payment
for that copy and then he said,
"When you bring the rest back,
you'll get, you know,
the rest of the money."
Rob said $250,000 was
what it was gonna be.
He actually gave the money
to his accountant.
You know, he ended up getting
the tape, uh, for Rob
on the last, uh, visit
that I went up there.
I just didn't know that
there was a point in time...
...where...
...where they were talking...
...where they were talking...
about killing me.
So we started doing the stories,
and we'd heard that there was
videotapes out there of R. Kelly
with the underage girls,
and we'd let it be known that
we'd be happy to, you know,
get those tapes, if they could
assist in our reporting.
One day, an anonymous video
was-was dropped off
in Jim's mailbox.
So this appeared to be R. Kelly
engaging in sex
with an underage girl.
Tongues are really wagging,
ears are really burning,
because they're like, "Did you
hear about this sex tape?"
So that means everything else
that we've been hearing,
we knew it was true.
That set everything off.
MITCHELL:
The newsroom was in an uproar.
The editors had to make
a decision whether or not
this was so important that
we could sit and view a tape
and to basically pursue a story
that literally was based in
pornography, child pornography.
So it was very easy
to look at that videotape
and believe that
that was R. Kelly on the tape
and that the girl was underage.
She looked like a child.
I got to tell you,
as a mother and as a grandmother
and as a black woman,
I was sickened by what I saw.
It contained very graphic,
um... hardcore porn.
If I could just be blunt.
Various sexual acts,
including urination,
oral sex,
everything that you can name.
PALLASCH: There'd just be denial
after denial
from people in the community
that knew R. Kelly.
They'd just say, "Oh, it's all
wrong, it's all wrong.
These are people
out to get R. Kelly."
But, you know, you can't
be dissuaded, you can't be, uh,
intimidated out of these things.
We didn't let up
our reporting at all.
We were made aware that there
was a 14-year-old girl.
His bass player's daughter
that he was, uh,
having an-an,
a sexual relationship with
at that time we were
doing the stories.
SPARKLE:
Chicago Sun-Times contacted me
and wanted me to come down
to their offices to view tapes
that possibly had,
um, girls on it
that I may have known.
On the tape,
my niece has
the same hairstyle she had
when she turned 14.
That was her, for sure.
And that was him, definitely.
My name is Raven,
and I was friends
with the girl in the tape
since 1997, junior high on.
We bonded over basketball.
She and I were the, you know,
star basketball players
of our junior high team.
We spent a lot
of time together,
both on and off the court.
Her personality was vibrant.
Always happy,
always having a great time,
the life of the party.
Just a really fun,
wonderful person to be around.
JACQUES CONWAY:
Oak Park is a small town,
so you get to know people
quite well.
As a coach, I saw her play
from junior high
up until she got on my team
as a sophomore in high school.
Her parents
were very responsible,
like any family
in Oak Park River Forest.
You know,
two parents who worked,
sent their kid to
the same school they went to.
Very supportive
of their kids' activities
by attending those events.
GENGLER: R. Kelly would come
to some basketball games.
I would see him in the stands.
It almost seemed
like a doting father
when R. Kelly would see her.
CONWAY:
It was just strange for me,
to see a-a grown man hanging out
at a high school
with high school girls.
SPARKLE:
Like, you hear things,
but to see it visually,
and for her to be so young...
it (bleep) me up.
It really did-- like,
it's over with,
but it still haunts me.
You know?
And I hate this (bleep),
that it happened.
It shouldn't have happened.
I should have never
introduced her to him.
I should have never introduced
my family to him.
Like, how dare you.
How dare you.
SPARKLE:
How dare you.
(sniffles)
What the (bleep)?
"What are you doing, Robert?"
Like, I never thought
he would do this (bleep)
to my family.
I don't know how the Sun-Times
got the tape.
Who dropped it off,
who sent it,
who threw it-- I-I have no idea.
There was a money transaction
from Robert to my niece
in the beginning
of this videotape.
After the money transaction,
then there was a transaction...
(laughs softly)
...if you understand
what I'm saying.
A sexual transaction.
And I didn't need
to see any more,
'cause I knew it was her.
PALLASCH:
We were able to confirm
it was indeed her
at a time when she was 14.
R. Kelly and an underage girl
having sex.
Here, we have evidence
of a felony.
Now, you don't want to become
an arm of the prosecution.
Journalists are supposed to be
separate and apart from that.
But if you find a body
in the lobby of the Sun-Times,
you call the police.
And we ultimately did.
Here was a child who was being
used by a grown man
for sexual gratification,
and obviously, no one cared.
People knew what was going on
at his, uh, residence.
They probably saw this girl
in and out,
but proving that
was a different thing.
It was obvious she was young.
It was on tape.
Everybody saw it.
It shows you how rich
and powerful men can get away
with a lot of things.
But it also shows
the power imbalance
between the abuser
and the victim, as well.
Ever since this-this tape thing,
this rumor has come out,
you know, there's been
a whole lot of people, you know,
uh, it's been
a R. Kelly Day, man.
It's been people trying to,
you know, say this or say that,
coming out of the woodwork
for me, you know,
just trying to get paid.
I'm not a monster that people,
that people
are saying I am, and, uh,
if people out there have a tape
of me, and they're saying
it's with me and a young girl,
a minor,
then they're sadly mistaken
or they're lying.
(film projector clicking)
JOVANTE: In his mind,
I think he believes
some of his own sick lies.
In his mind, he didn't do it.
He has no level
of personal accountability
as it relates
to his poor behavior.
His attempt to say it wasn't him
is ridiculous.
At one point, he's having sex
with this woman,
and somebody is yelling
from another room, you know,
"R. Kells, pick up the phone.
It's phone for you..."
and, like, yelling his name.
PALLASCH:
Eventually,
bootleg copies of the tape
start showing up
around the country.
People are watching it
in clubs.
MITCHELL:
This tape was duplicated
and was for sale
all over the South Side.
So you could drive up to a,
one of these, uh, outdoor
flea markets and get a tape
of R. Kelly--
allegedly R. Kelly-- having sex
with an underage girl.
This is before the whole advent
of-of sex tapes,
and I think the tape
came on VHS.
As a matter of fact,
it was a VHS tape.
That tape was rushed to me
from Chicago.
I'm looking at this tape,
I'm like, "Oh..."
Robert has a problem.
A lot of people
saw that pee tape.
It was circulating
in the streets,
it was, like, a bootleg
that went around.
I don't remember what I was
thinking at that time,
but I'm like,
"How did he get away with this?"
BURKE:
When I think about
this grown man urinating
in the mouth of a child,
and how degrading that is,
when I first heard it,
it just really concretized
for me
that this person is a monster.
The tape is incredibly graphic.
That makes it
almost impossible--
or should have
made it impossible--
for people to pretend
that they did not know
that this person
had a thing for little girls.
It's strange.
You have R. Kelly performing
at the opening ceremonies
of the Olympics...
at the same time
that there was this sex tape.
So for R. Kelly to be there,
just speaks to how huge he was.
ANN POWERS:
The story of sexual predation
as an inconvenience
in popular music
is so old.
It's been going on
for decades, centuries.
Nobody wants to give up
the music they love
and nobody wants to think badly
of the artists they love.
And I think that happened
with R. Kelly.
SPARKLE:
I was pissed.
I'm like, "Who would do this?"
Not only was I pissed at Robert
for filming this (bleep),
I was pissed at the person
who put this out,
because I'm like, "Look, this
is a little girl on this tape."
"Why would y'all do that?"
CONWAY:
I was made aware
by, uh, some students that there
was a, a, uh, tape, a sex tape.
One of my basketball players
with R. Kelly.
Uh, and they were selling it
on the West Side of Chicago.
My specialty was sex crimes
against minors
for the Oak Park
Police Department,
so I went to the West Side,
got a copy of this tape.
And I actually saw it
at the police station.
It was just very disheartening,
it was very sad.
This was the first victim
that I personally knew.
And so, it was very heart-- uh,
heartfelt to-to experience
this, to see it,
and felt that something had to
be done about it.
Watching the tape and just
thinking about, you know,
if that were me
or if that were my daughter,
it just, obviously,
tears me apart.
I wouldn't want that to happen
to any young lady
who's still young,
still figuring out life,
just looking up to this person
who's supposed to be somebody
that you trust and...
that trust, obviously, being
taken complete advantage of.
PRODUCER: When you found out
about that tape,
can you tell me
how you found out about it?
(quietly):
It don't even matter.
It doesn't matter how
I found out about that tape.
What matters is that it existed.
It doesn't matter.
Who cares?
Should've never happened.
I love that baby.
Like she was mine.
That was my baby.
And for him to do that to her...
Man...
LISA:
It was 2000.
I had just turned 20 years old.
I ended up, um, missing
my period and I told Rob
that I thought
that I was pregnant.
And he asked me to, um,
did I take a pregnancy test?
I told him I did, and, um,
after that, he asked me
to get another test and then to
take that one in front of him.
And I did that,
and it came up positive.
And, um, he asked me
what did I want to do,
and I told him,
"To get an abortion."
He contacted his assistant
and a week later,
we went to Planned Parenthood
and I had my abortion.
It kind of was, like, the only
option to me because, um,
I didn't really want
to have a kid by him.
I was concerned with
if it would be a girl,
what I would have
to deal with, so...
I knew she would get older
at some point.
There were, there were things
that I just had to think about
in my mind, you know,
"Okay, he did this
"with someone else's, um, child,
I mean, what would keep him
from doing that to mine?"
PRODUCER:
What was he like as a father?
Was he loving
with your children?
I think Robert
loved our children
the best way he knew how.
He didn't have a father figure
in his life,
so he really didn't...
know how to be a father.
He just knew how to provide.
MITCHELL: The thing about Andrea
Kelly and him marrying her
is that nobody
saw her after that.
It was like she was locked up,
uh, o-on their estate,
and she wasn't allowed out.
There were stories about--
that even if they, she wanted
to get her hair done,
or get her makeup done,
the people had to come to her,
that she was not
allowed to come out.
And so it was a real odd,
strange situation.
People were wondering,
especially journalists,
why in the midst
of all these allegations
of him having sex
with underage girls,
number one,
why would she marry him?
And number two, was she really
free to ever leave home?
Was she a prisoner
in her own home?
Just, what that relationship
was all about.
There was a lot
of speculation about
what was going on
in the Kelly household.
ANDREA: I would always hear
rumors about,
"Oh, he's being sued
by this person,
and sued by that person..."
And it almost seemed
like every other week,
he was in the tabloids
for something.
Another person's
coming forward,
and I'm thinking
to myself, like,
"When did you have time?
Are there more--" like, "Do you
have a doppelganger around here
that I don't know about?"
Like, "When do you have time
"to go to the studio,
play basketball, come abuse me,
"be a dad-- when you wanted to--
"and then go destroy
other people's lives,
and still be on the road
and shoot videos?"
Like, it was just, my mind
couldn't fathom, like,
"How are you doing all this?"
And why didn't I know
anything about it?
And I think the frustration
set in because it then became
very real to me: "Drea,
the reason why you don't know
and he's able to do it, because
he has people helping him."
BURKE:
He had to have backup
in order to continue this level
of behavior that he had.
His predatory behavior
was supported
by the people around him,
in his camp.
And also, it points, to me,
to the person who understands
that they're doing
something wrong.
Right? That you know that
you're doing something wrong
if you have to create systems
to protect yourself
from being exposed.
PRODUCER:
Did you ever meet his wife?
Um, there were times
where she'd be checking in
to the same hotel as me
at the same time.
She might be with his publicist,
and I'd be with his assistant.
He kept us apart.
You have your team,
you have your cover-up people.
You have lawyers settling claims
out of court.
Not trying to be funny:
you don't read and write well,
so you're not booking flights.
Who's booking these flights?
Who's-who's telling the driver
to go pick people up?
Who's getting these hotel rooms?
He's not doing it on his own.
CRAIG: I tell you, I don't know
if the music industry
in all knew about
what was going on with Rob,
but I do know
that around Rob's camp,
everyone knew,
and nothing was done.
And when you have
those type of people
who are your yes-men around you,
uh, it will continue to happen.
And if it wasn't right,
it was obviously buried
so that the rest of the world
didn't know about it.
DEMETRIUS:
That's the way it was.
It was every day, you know?
It's the same routine,
because he can have his way.
We work for him,
and this is what he wanted
and so this is what we were
supposed to get him.
If you're an adult
who's around him
and you're aware
and you're not saying anything,
you're just as sick as he is.
Please understand that.
It doesn't make you any better
because you're not doing it.
If you're aware
and you're not saying anything,
you're just as sick.
LEMIEUX: You've had these
relations with young girls.
There's a video.
We're not talking about rumors
at this point,
we're talking about something
that we can watch, to this day.
So it feels like they're taking
a stand against black girls.
It feels like
they're taking a stance to say,
"Protecting Robert Kelly
and his ability to make music
"and entertain fans
means more than what he did
in his private life
with these little girls."
(cheering)
R. Kelly has done
a really good job
at sort of spreading himself
around musically.
So he's got
these hypersexual songs
like "Bump n' Grind,"
and then he's got
the inspirational songs
like "I Believe I Can Fly."
And... (scoffs)
I mean, you know,
how can the guy who made
"I Believe I Can Fly,"
which is played
on Sunday mornings
in church,
in many black churches,
how can that guy be wrong?
One young exec stated,
"I don't care if that is him
on that tape,
because we can't afford
to lose him."
I was like, "Wow.
That's some serious (bleep)."
Can't afford to lose him,
and you don't care if it is him
on this tape, with a young girl.
I was like,
"That shows what type of...
(scoffs)
person you are."
When someone like R. Kelly
gets in trouble,
there-there's this knee-jerk
instinct to protect him
from "the system."
From the hand of the law,
from all these forces
that are at play
to make sure that black people--
black men in particular--
don't succeed.
We have to stand by him.
We have to take care of him.
But his crimes were against
black women and girls.
And that was devastating for me,
because at this point,
we already knew,
but now we know some more.
You know, that this Aaliyah
thing was not a moment.
This wasn't, "Oh, my God,
she was just so mature,
she was just,
I was just spellbound,
there was just
something about her."
It wasn't just those rumors
about Kenwood.
It's on tape,
and it's disgusting.
And the tape
is being distributed
in-in barbershops
and on porn sites
and it's everywhere.
And people are still
not willing to say
"I can't do this
with you anymore."
I called my oldest brother...
and I told him
that I just had seen a tape,
and it showed our niece on it.
You know, I didn't want
to bring it to my sister
because I don't know
how to bring this to her.
I couldn't really keep my head
in the game at this point.
What mattered was
me protecting my family
or-or me protecting my niece.
You know what I mean?
That's all that mattered to me.
And I was estranged
from the family.
They felt like I was tarnishing
the family's name.
Tarnishing the family name? No.
Robert tarnished
the family's name
by putting our niece, your
daughter, out there like that.
He set out to destroy
that family.
That's what I believe,
in my heart.
I believe he tried to divide
that family
with his poor behavior.
Sparkle is my friend,
she is my son's godmother.
She has been and is
like a mother to me.
I have always been
her little girl,
and I will always be
her little girl.
And I watched my friend give up
her career to save her family.
Robert knows what he did.
He's not confused
about what he did.
Once I came out publicly,
yeah, there was
a lot of blowback.
People were unbelieving,
people thought I was hating.
People thought I was jealous.
People were still able
to dismiss Sparkle
because they felt like
she's just trying to get money.
What happened to Sparkle
is like,
"You are messing with the money,
"you are in violation,
you are talking out of turn,
and now we're gonna
shut you down."
It run the gamut of loaded
and unloaded (bleep)
that people were saying
about me, to me,
to-- about my family, you know,
about my niece.
Her being a little fast girl,
like, come on.
She's 14 years old.
The adult is supposed to know
not to touch that.
GENGLER: I just remember
being completely blown away,
and for this to be happening not
only with a high-profile person
that you look up to and admire,
but also somebody
that you were very close with,
and at the time,
thought everything was fine.
I felt really upset
because at the same time,
I'm like, "Well, why wasn't
I there for her?
How did I not know? How could
I have been there for her?"
Thinking all these things
that I could've done.
(film projector clicking)
JOVANTE:
He has no moral clock.
And I can only imagine what
his wife and his children
have endured and did endure.
I can only imagine.
I know what I've seen.
I can only imagine.
I can
only imagine.
-ED GORDON:
You also have a family.
-Yeah.
How are they dealing with this?
You have two children.
Well, my wife is totally behind
me, because she knows the truth,
and-and she's in my corner.
ANDREA: He put me on the bus
in the middle of the night,
did not tell me
why we're going,
what we're going for.
He shipped me off to Florida,
and I'm just staying
in this house.
I don't know what's going on,
I got security at the door,
nobody's telling me
anything, like,
"Why are we here,
why did we leave Illinois?"
I'm pregnant, I'm supposed
to be going to the doctor,
at least once a week
at this point.
I should not be traveling.
"What is going on?"
No one would tell me anything.
I was just broken.
CRAIG:
Behind the scenes,
the allegations had come.
It was known this tape
was there, prior.
It was obviously buried
so that the rest of the world
didn't know about it,
until this tape and those
allegations popped up.
He put me on the bus
in the middle of the night,
did not tell me why we're
going, what we're going for.
He shipped me off to Florida,
and I'm just staying
in this house.
I don't know what's going on,
I got security at the door,
nobody's telling me
anything, like,
"Why are we here, why did we
leave Illinois?" I'm pregnant.
I'm supposed to be going
to the doctor,
at least once a week
at this point.
I should not be traveling.
"What is going on?"
No one would tell me anything.
I was under so much stress
that when I went to the ob-gyn,
they couldn't find
his heartbeat.
And I remember getting
to the emergency room
and my best friend Angie
was with me
and I just remember coming
through the door
and they had papers and signing
and people were grabbing me
and putting stuff in my arm
and I'm like, "Wait, wait,
wait, wait," like,
"what are you guys doing?"
And they're like, "We have to
induce your labor right away,
because we don't know
if the baby's gonna make it."
I just remember them
laying me on the bed,
and they were like,
"We're gonna give you Pitocin,
we're gonna get this going.
Come on, Mom."
And I went through the labor,
and I just remember
falling so in love
with Little Rob
because he came here so strong,
but I was in that much stress
that it put my unborn child's
life in jeopardy.
'Cause here I am,
by myself in Florida.
I don't know anybody,
I just have my best friend.
And they eventually, again,
had to go through ten people
to get him on the phone.
(sniffles)
"Mr. Kelly, do you know that
they induced your wife's labor?
Like, she just had Little Rob."
(sniffles)
He said he was coming back.
But again,
I don't know where he is.
And I remember after having him,
that's when that day happened.
MAN:
Mr. Kelly has been indicted.
There's been a warrant issued
for his arrest,
and the Chicago Police
Department is currently seeking
to arrest Mr. Kelly.
RICHARD DEVINE: We charge
that the acts took place
in Kelly's home in Chicago.
These indictments, hopefully,
will send a message
to sexual predators
that taking advantage of minors
will not be tolerated and that
there are severe penalties.
I'm sitting here with the baby,
and then it
comes across the screen,
they're like,
"R&B singer R. Kelly
has been arrested
on child pornography,"
and I just remember
my best friend was with me...
and she said
she don't know what happened,
but my body went limp,
and she said she caught Little
Rob before he hit the floor.
And I remember, like,
a buzzing sound.
It almost felt like
I couldn't hear.
And I saw the screen,
and they showed his name
and the police, and...
I just, I don't even remember
a lot after that.
REPORTER: What about
the child porn charges?
(women shouting)
CHANEY: The police
found media of R. Kelly
with plenty
of other young girls
that appeared to be underage.
NEWSWOMAN: Kelly is accused
of videotaping himself
having sex
with an underage girl.
Y'all need to leave him alone.
That's not R. Kelly.
Women lined up
to show support for R. Kelly.
I love me some R. Kelly.
JERHONDA:
I went to his trial
because I was a superfan
at the time.
NORCOTT: At the courthouse,
his eyes were always fixated
on the young girls.
Do you like teenage girls?
He invited me back to
his mansion in Olympia Fields.
You know what you did.
And he told me to bring
a bathing suit.
You know the turmoil you
brought into my kids' life...
I was 14 years old.
...and for that,
you can go to hell.
A lot of people saw
that pee tape.
It was circulating
in the streets.
I came across the one
with me, him,
and the 14-year-old.
My niece has the same hairstyle
she had
when she turned 14.
That was her, for sure.
And that was him, definitely.
Various sexual acts,
including urination, oral sex.
For him to do that to her...
Oh, man.
I took it and he never noticed
it was gone.
I just didn't know that
there was a point in time...
(crying):
where they were talk...
where they were talking...
about killing me.
I should have never introduced
her to him.
(crying): I should have never
introduced my family to him.
How dare you.
How dare you. (sniffles)
♪ ♪
CRAIG WILLIAMS: There was
a bedroom in the studio.
Girls everywhere.
15 to 17 to 18.
JOVANTE CUNNINGHAM:
We were young.
We were naive.
We were easily influenced.
It wasn't just me
that was young that he liked.
It wasn't a mistake
with Aaliyah.
He's sleeping
with this young girl.
GEM PRATTS: It's like, uh,
cattle that has four acres
and he's the only cattle
to graze; it's easy pickins'.
This is somebody who's written
this inspirational,
motivational song.
It was just massive.
JAMILAH LEMIEUX:
Can he really be the monster?
There's no moral clock there,
there's no gage.
I introduced my niece to Robert
and I saw her in the studio
by herself.
I would walk in like,
"What you doing here?"
LISA VAN ALLEN:
Him and I both were actually
having sex with her.
I was unaware, at that time,
of how young she was.
She was actually 14.
When I figured out that
I had had sex
with a 14-year-old,
um, it made me feel betrayed,
because he lied to me
and told me she was 16,
which would have been close
to my age.
And it also made me question
his motives.
I mean, the fact that he lied
about her age to me, told me
that he obviously knew
that wasn't okay
for her to be younger.
It-it made me feel, like,
sick to my stomach.
It made me feel disgusted.
I mean, my daughter is older
than she is now.
We didn't have sex
with her anymore
after I found out that she was
that much younger.
We had sex in his home twice.
I didn't see his wife
at the house,
but there was a-a situation, um,
between me, him
and the younger woman
where he did tell me
that his wife was upstairs
when we were in the--
I call it the Colorado Room,
the one with all the wood,
where the infamous sex tape
was filmed--
that room,
when we were down there,
one time, he did tell me
that she was upstairs.
PRODUCER: The girls that were
seeing the other side of him,
did you notice them?
Do you know how--
Were they young at that time?
No. He never brought
any of them around me.
He was never abusive to anybody
in front of me.
He was never a person that,
you know, like,
"Hey, do y'all hear that
in the room next door?
Is that fighting or something?"
I mean, we have to be realistic
about the story line, too.
Seeing some (bleep) like that,
you-- we really are not gonna
be together,
because you're showing me
up front who your monster is,
so I think that he strategically
did what he did with me.
He kept it away from me
for a reason.
It's like sometimes I often wish
I would have just known
up front; I really do.
I wish that I would have been
able to see the fullness
of the monster
I was dealing with
because it probably
would have saved me
years and years of pain.
It would have saved me
years of abuse.
It would have saved me years of
being alienated from my family
if I just would have known
up front
what the hell I'm dealing with.
LISA: When we first started
having sex,
Rob was behind the camera,
and he pretty much
would talk us through
the motions.
He would never ask me if, um,
it was okay to be filmed,
but he never hid the camera
or anything like that.
He would just pull-pull out
his tripod and his camera.
And he had the whole thing,
the lighting.
He'd set it up and he-he liked
to-to have control
of the situation
because he would tell you
what to do anyways
when you were having sex.
When he would put the camera up,
he'd just say,
"Make sure you're sitting
properly for the camera,
you know, for whatever angle."
And when he'd be done filming,
he'd just put it in his bag.
It was 2000,
around the same time
when I did the "I Wish" video
with him.
I was in the studio,
I was in the room,
and he left the bag
in the room with me.
And I just happened
to open the bag up,
and I started popping the tapes
in to see what was on them.
It was just a whole bunch
of different tapes with him
having sex with different young
girls, I guess, and women.
But I came across the one
with me, him
and the 14-year-old.
I watched it and,
as I fast-forwarded some,
I'd see other scenes
with just him and her,
without me.
Her face,
her chest, it's just,
wherever it was going,
he just was-- as if she was
a toilet, he was just peeing.
You know, just letting it
go wherever.
I thought it was gross and-and
weird and, uh, belittling.
In regards to the tapes,
Robert taping himself,
he's always did that.
Robert recorded everything.
I mean, R. Kelly tapes
his sexual encounters.
And he watched his own movies.
Abusers often want trophies
from their criminal acts,
so people will take things
and be able to place memories
and place maybe
even sexual feelings
on trophies that they've taken.
And it's power play. You get
to actively replay the act.
And when that's not enough,
then you make another tape.
LISA: When I saw it,
you know, it upset me,
and I didn't want him
to have possession of the tape
anymore, 'cause I was on it,
and I took it and kept it on me,
and when I got a chance
to go back to my hotel room,
I left it at my hotel room, and
he never noticed it was gone.
I actually didn't hold
onto the tape that long at all
because I was afraid that
he'd find out that I had it.
I had befriended a few
of his other artists,
and I actually asked one of them
if they could hold
the tape for me.
I remember the first time
we were in Detroit
and he came to me and he told me
about the videotapes.
He'd say, uh, "Man,
you got to help me, man.
"We got to pray, man,
'cause these videos, man,
I can't stop taping myself, man,
and..." and so we prayed.
I was privy, and shown,
um, videos
while I was still employed
and, you know, around, yes.
Um, I never saw
the-the bag's videos,
because I think
I would've been like,
"Man, what the hell
are you doing?"
You know?
"What-what are you doing?"
But yes, I-I did see several,
several videos.
DEMETRIUS:
You know, I didn't know
what was ahead, with those
tapes, but Robert did.
And he used to come to me
and he used to talk to me
about that.
He'd say, "Man, this is gonna
get me in trouble, man.
"I can't seem to stop.
This is gonna destroy me."
My name is Abdon Pallasch.
I was the legal affairs reporter
for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Our rock critic,
Jim DeRogatis,
got a fax laying out that there
was a relationship going on
with R. Kelly
and an underage girl.
Jim's the one
who really heard about
the dynamic that was going on
in which people in R. Kelly's
own circle were saying
that there was an issue there
where he was just hanging out
with young girls.
And Jim had gotten word
that some of these young women
had actually filed suit
against him.
You know, he approached me
as the legal affairs reporter,
you know,
"Can we check this out?"
And, you know,
I went and started
pulling lawsuits and,
sure enough, there were some.
And they generally settled
out of court.
But the allegations
were pretty explosive.
We started uncovering a series
of lawsuits that had been filed
and settlements that had been
reached with-with young women
that claim
that-that they had sex
with R. Kelly
when they were underage.
Our first story ran
December 21, 2000.
And it said that R. Kelly had
been sued by all these girls.
The suits, all added together,
seemed to show
a pattern of behavior
of him going after very young
girls for sexual relationships.
Immediately after
our story ran,
-we started getting calls.
-(phone ringing)
Other girls who said
this has happened to them,
from girls who said
it happened to their friends.
And we-we did
follow-up interviews
with as many of them
as we could.
A lot of them
were very reluctant and shy.
And a lot of times,
they wouldn't want to have
their names used or even have
their full stories appear.
These confidential settlements,
you know,
if the girls go public,
they-they lose the settlement.
You have to pay it back.
So there's
a limit to how much more
we're gonna get
from-from people
that had already been involved
in-in those sort of suits.
LEMIEUX:
These are five,
six-figure settlements.
And so, there we see
the beginning
of an ecosystem, right?
Like, there's a--
there's a system
of protecting R. Kelly
from accountability.
They said they were minors.
-Mm-hmm.
-You settled out of court.
-Yeah.
-In this country,
many people will assume
that means you were guilty.
Why'd you settle?
I really can't go into detail
about that particular thing,
because,
when I filed the lawsuit,
um, of course, I signed, uh,
a piece of paper
saying I couldn't discuss
-those particular people
in the situation.
-So there's a confidentiality
-agreement after the fact.
-Exactly. Exactly.
TARANA BURKE: The idea
that R. Kelly was using
nondisclosure agreements
to keep these young girls
and their families quiet,
that means that he is cognizant
of the kind of things
that he's doing
and he's trying to protect
himself on the front end.
And I think that this is
the thing that makes him, to me,
more the-- more of a predator.
LEMIEUX: You can get people
to sign NDAs.
We can make people go away
with a check.
We don't have to do this
in court,
in front of the cameras
and in front of,
you know, the paparazzi
and the tabloids.
We can make these things
go away.
His camp was very unhappy
and pushed back hard
and said it was all false.
But they couldn't point
to any part of the story
that was actually false,
'cause it was all taken
from court documents.
LISA: At this point, there were
tapes floating around.
I-I didn't want a sex tape of me
floating around
the Internet or on TV
or anything, so...
the only thing I could think of
doing at that point would be to,
um, to see if Rob could figure
out a way to get the tape back.
I actually ended up
contacting Rob
and told him
that I had took the tape.
He flew me back up to Chicago.
I told him that they probably
wouldn't just
give it back to me, that they
probably need something,
or whatever, to get it back.
And so he arranged for them
to be paid
to get him back his tape.
He had them take lie detector
tests, well, one of the guys,
and me, and, uh, I passed,
and the guy did not
because he was lying, he said
that he didn't make any copies,
and he actually did.
So, um, he ended up giving,
you know, like, a little payment
for that copy and then he said,
"When you bring the rest back,
you'll get, you know,
the rest of the money."
Rob said $250,000 was
what it was gonna be.
He actually gave the money
to his accountant.
You know, he ended up getting
the tape, uh, for Rob
on the last, uh, visit
that I went up there.
I just didn't know that
there was a point in time...
...where...
...where they were talking...
...where they were talking...
about killing me.
So we started doing the stories,
and we'd heard that there was
videotapes out there of R. Kelly
with the underage girls,
and we'd let it be known that
we'd be happy to, you know,
get those tapes, if they could
assist in our reporting.
One day, an anonymous video
was-was dropped off
in Jim's mailbox.
So this appeared to be R. Kelly
engaging in sex
with an underage girl.
Tongues are really wagging,
ears are really burning,
because they're like, "Did you
hear about this sex tape?"
So that means everything else
that we've been hearing,
we knew it was true.
That set everything off.
MITCHELL:
The newsroom was in an uproar.
The editors had to make
a decision whether or not
this was so important that
we could sit and view a tape
and to basically pursue a story
that literally was based in
pornography, child pornography.
So it was very easy
to look at that videotape
and believe that
that was R. Kelly on the tape
and that the girl was underage.
She looked like a child.
I got to tell you,
as a mother and as a grandmother
and as a black woman,
I was sickened by what I saw.
It contained very graphic,
um... hardcore porn.
If I could just be blunt.
Various sexual acts,
including urination,
oral sex,
everything that you can name.
PALLASCH: There'd just be denial
after denial
from people in the community
that knew R. Kelly.
They'd just say, "Oh, it's all
wrong, it's all wrong.
These are people
out to get R. Kelly."
But, you know, you can't
be dissuaded, you can't be, uh,
intimidated out of these things.
We didn't let up
our reporting at all.
We were made aware that there
was a 14-year-old girl.
His bass player's daughter
that he was, uh,
having an-an,
a sexual relationship with
at that time we were
doing the stories.
SPARKLE:
Chicago Sun-Times contacted me
and wanted me to come down
to their offices to view tapes
that possibly had,
um, girls on it
that I may have known.
On the tape,
my niece has
the same hairstyle she had
when she turned 14.
That was her, for sure.
And that was him, definitely.
My name is Raven,
and I was friends
with the girl in the tape
since 1997, junior high on.
We bonded over basketball.
She and I were the, you know,
star basketball players
of our junior high team.
We spent a lot
of time together,
both on and off the court.
Her personality was vibrant.
Always happy,
always having a great time,
the life of the party.
Just a really fun,
wonderful person to be around.
JACQUES CONWAY:
Oak Park is a small town,
so you get to know people
quite well.
As a coach, I saw her play
from junior high
up until she got on my team
as a sophomore in high school.
Her parents
were very responsible,
like any family
in Oak Park River Forest.
You know,
two parents who worked,
sent their kid to
the same school they went to.
Very supportive
of their kids' activities
by attending those events.
GENGLER: R. Kelly would come
to some basketball games.
I would see him in the stands.
It almost seemed
like a doting father
when R. Kelly would see her.
CONWAY:
It was just strange for me,
to see a-a grown man hanging out
at a high school
with high school girls.
SPARKLE:
Like, you hear things,
but to see it visually,
and for her to be so young...
it (bleep) me up.
It really did-- like,
it's over with,
but it still haunts me.
You know?
And I hate this (bleep),
that it happened.
It shouldn't have happened.
I should have never
introduced her to him.
I should have never introduced
my family to him.
Like, how dare you.
How dare you.
SPARKLE:
How dare you.
(sniffles)
What the (bleep)?
"What are you doing, Robert?"
Like, I never thought
he would do this (bleep)
to my family.
I don't know how the Sun-Times
got the tape.
Who dropped it off,
who sent it,
who threw it-- I-I have no idea.
There was a money transaction
from Robert to my niece
in the beginning
of this videotape.
After the money transaction,
then there was a transaction...
(laughs softly)
...if you understand
what I'm saying.
A sexual transaction.
And I didn't need
to see any more,
'cause I knew it was her.
PALLASCH:
We were able to confirm
it was indeed her
at a time when she was 14.
R. Kelly and an underage girl
having sex.
Here, we have evidence
of a felony.
Now, you don't want to become
an arm of the prosecution.
Journalists are supposed to be
separate and apart from that.
But if you find a body
in the lobby of the Sun-Times,
you call the police.
And we ultimately did.
Here was a child who was being
used by a grown man
for sexual gratification,
and obviously, no one cared.
People knew what was going on
at his, uh, residence.
They probably saw this girl
in and out,
but proving that
was a different thing.
It was obvious she was young.
It was on tape.
Everybody saw it.
It shows you how rich
and powerful men can get away
with a lot of things.
But it also shows
the power imbalance
between the abuser
and the victim, as well.
Ever since this-this tape thing,
this rumor has come out,
you know, there's been
a whole lot of people, you know,
uh, it's been
a R. Kelly Day, man.
It's been people trying to,
you know, say this or say that,
coming out of the woodwork
for me, you know,
just trying to get paid.
I'm not a monster that people,
that people
are saying I am, and, uh,
if people out there have a tape
of me, and they're saying
it's with me and a young girl,
a minor,
then they're sadly mistaken
or they're lying.
(film projector clicking)
JOVANTE: In his mind,
I think he believes
some of his own sick lies.
In his mind, he didn't do it.
He has no level
of personal accountability
as it relates
to his poor behavior.
His attempt to say it wasn't him
is ridiculous.
At one point, he's having sex
with this woman,
and somebody is yelling
from another room, you know,
"R. Kells, pick up the phone.
It's phone for you..."
and, like, yelling his name.
PALLASCH:
Eventually,
bootleg copies of the tape
start showing up
around the country.
People are watching it
in clubs.
MITCHELL:
This tape was duplicated
and was for sale
all over the South Side.
So you could drive up to a,
one of these, uh, outdoor
flea markets and get a tape
of R. Kelly--
allegedly R. Kelly-- having sex
with an underage girl.
This is before the whole advent
of-of sex tapes,
and I think the tape
came on VHS.
As a matter of fact,
it was a VHS tape.
That tape was rushed to me
from Chicago.
I'm looking at this tape,
I'm like, "Oh..."
Robert has a problem.
A lot of people
saw that pee tape.
It was circulating
in the streets,
it was, like, a bootleg
that went around.
I don't remember what I was
thinking at that time,
but I'm like,
"How did he get away with this?"
BURKE:
When I think about
this grown man urinating
in the mouth of a child,
and how degrading that is,
when I first heard it,
it just really concretized
for me
that this person is a monster.
The tape is incredibly graphic.
That makes it
almost impossible--
or should have
made it impossible--
for people to pretend
that they did not know
that this person
had a thing for little girls.
It's strange.
You have R. Kelly performing
at the opening ceremonies
of the Olympics...
at the same time
that there was this sex tape.
So for R. Kelly to be there,
just speaks to how huge he was.
ANN POWERS:
The story of sexual predation
as an inconvenience
in popular music
is so old.
It's been going on
for decades, centuries.
Nobody wants to give up
the music they love
and nobody wants to think badly
of the artists they love.
And I think that happened
with R. Kelly.
SPARKLE:
I was pissed.
I'm like, "Who would do this?"
Not only was I pissed at Robert
for filming this (bleep),
I was pissed at the person
who put this out,
because I'm like, "Look, this
is a little girl on this tape."
"Why would y'all do that?"
CONWAY:
I was made aware
by, uh, some students that there
was a, a, uh, tape, a sex tape.
One of my basketball players
with R. Kelly.
Uh, and they were selling it
on the West Side of Chicago.
My specialty was sex crimes
against minors
for the Oak Park
Police Department,
so I went to the West Side,
got a copy of this tape.
And I actually saw it
at the police station.
It was just very disheartening,
it was very sad.
This was the first victim
that I personally knew.
And so, it was very heart-- uh,
heartfelt to-to experience
this, to see it,
and felt that something had to
be done about it.
Watching the tape and just
thinking about, you know,
if that were me
or if that were my daughter,
it just, obviously,
tears me apart.
I wouldn't want that to happen
to any young lady
who's still young,
still figuring out life,
just looking up to this person
who's supposed to be somebody
that you trust and...
that trust, obviously, being
taken complete advantage of.
PRODUCER: When you found out
about that tape,
can you tell me
how you found out about it?
(quietly):
It don't even matter.
It doesn't matter how
I found out about that tape.
What matters is that it existed.
It doesn't matter.
Who cares?
Should've never happened.
I love that baby.
Like she was mine.
That was my baby.
And for him to do that to her...
Man...
LISA:
It was 2000.
I had just turned 20 years old.
I ended up, um, missing
my period and I told Rob
that I thought
that I was pregnant.
And he asked me to, um,
did I take a pregnancy test?
I told him I did, and, um,
after that, he asked me
to get another test and then to
take that one in front of him.
And I did that,
and it came up positive.
And, um, he asked me
what did I want to do,
and I told him,
"To get an abortion."
He contacted his assistant
and a week later,
we went to Planned Parenthood
and I had my abortion.
It kind of was, like, the only
option to me because, um,
I didn't really want
to have a kid by him.
I was concerned with
if it would be a girl,
what I would have
to deal with, so...
I knew she would get older
at some point.
There were, there were things
that I just had to think about
in my mind, you know,
"Okay, he did this
"with someone else's, um, child,
I mean, what would keep him
from doing that to mine?"
PRODUCER:
What was he like as a father?
Was he loving
with your children?
I think Robert
loved our children
the best way he knew how.
He didn't have a father figure
in his life,
so he really didn't...
know how to be a father.
He just knew how to provide.
MITCHELL: The thing about Andrea
Kelly and him marrying her
is that nobody
saw her after that.
It was like she was locked up,
uh, o-on their estate,
and she wasn't allowed out.
There were stories about--
that even if they, she wanted
to get her hair done,
or get her makeup done,
the people had to come to her,
that she was not
allowed to come out.
And so it was a real odd,
strange situation.
People were wondering,
especially journalists,
why in the midst
of all these allegations
of him having sex
with underage girls,
number one,
why would she marry him?
And number two, was she really
free to ever leave home?
Was she a prisoner
in her own home?
Just, what that relationship
was all about.
There was a lot
of speculation about
what was going on
in the Kelly household.
ANDREA: I would always hear
rumors about,
"Oh, he's being sued
by this person,
and sued by that person..."
And it almost seemed
like every other week,
he was in the tabloids
for something.
Another person's
coming forward,
and I'm thinking
to myself, like,
"When did you have time?
Are there more--" like, "Do you
have a doppelganger around here
that I don't know about?"
Like, "When do you have time
"to go to the studio,
play basketball, come abuse me,
"be a dad-- when you wanted to--
"and then go destroy
other people's lives,
and still be on the road
and shoot videos?"
Like, it was just, my mind
couldn't fathom, like,
"How are you doing all this?"
And why didn't I know
anything about it?
And I think the frustration
set in because it then became
very real to me: "Drea,
the reason why you don't know
and he's able to do it, because
he has people helping him."
BURKE:
He had to have backup
in order to continue this level
of behavior that he had.
His predatory behavior
was supported
by the people around him,
in his camp.
And also, it points, to me,
to the person who understands
that they're doing
something wrong.
Right? That you know that
you're doing something wrong
if you have to create systems
to protect yourself
from being exposed.
PRODUCER:
Did you ever meet his wife?
Um, there were times
where she'd be checking in
to the same hotel as me
at the same time.
She might be with his publicist,
and I'd be with his assistant.
He kept us apart.
You have your team,
you have your cover-up people.
You have lawyers settling claims
out of court.
Not trying to be funny:
you don't read and write well,
so you're not booking flights.
Who's booking these flights?
Who's-who's telling the driver
to go pick people up?
Who's getting these hotel rooms?
He's not doing it on his own.
CRAIG: I tell you, I don't know
if the music industry
in all knew about
what was going on with Rob,
but I do know
that around Rob's camp,
everyone knew,
and nothing was done.
And when you have
those type of people
who are your yes-men around you,
uh, it will continue to happen.
And if it wasn't right,
it was obviously buried
so that the rest of the world
didn't know about it.
DEMETRIUS:
That's the way it was.
It was every day, you know?
It's the same routine,
because he can have his way.
We work for him,
and this is what he wanted
and so this is what we were
supposed to get him.
If you're an adult
who's around him
and you're aware
and you're not saying anything,
you're just as sick as he is.
Please understand that.
It doesn't make you any better
because you're not doing it.
If you're aware
and you're not saying anything,
you're just as sick.
LEMIEUX: You've had these
relations with young girls.
There's a video.
We're not talking about rumors
at this point,
we're talking about something
that we can watch, to this day.
So it feels like they're taking
a stand against black girls.
It feels like
they're taking a stance to say,
"Protecting Robert Kelly
and his ability to make music
"and entertain fans
means more than what he did
in his private life
with these little girls."
(cheering)
R. Kelly has done
a really good job
at sort of spreading himself
around musically.
So he's got
these hypersexual songs
like "Bump n' Grind,"
and then he's got
the inspirational songs
like "I Believe I Can Fly."
And... (scoffs)
I mean, you know,
how can the guy who made
"I Believe I Can Fly,"
which is played
on Sunday mornings
in church,
in many black churches,
how can that guy be wrong?
One young exec stated,
"I don't care if that is him
on that tape,
because we can't afford
to lose him."
I was like, "Wow.
That's some serious (bleep)."
Can't afford to lose him,
and you don't care if it is him
on this tape, with a young girl.
I was like,
"That shows what type of...
(scoffs)
person you are."
When someone like R. Kelly
gets in trouble,
there-there's this knee-jerk
instinct to protect him
from "the system."
From the hand of the law,
from all these forces
that are at play
to make sure that black people--
black men in particular--
don't succeed.
We have to stand by him.
We have to take care of him.
But his crimes were against
black women and girls.
And that was devastating for me,
because at this point,
we already knew,
but now we know some more.
You know, that this Aaliyah
thing was not a moment.
This wasn't, "Oh, my God,
she was just so mature,
she was just,
I was just spellbound,
there was just
something about her."
It wasn't just those rumors
about Kenwood.
It's on tape,
and it's disgusting.
And the tape
is being distributed
in-in barbershops
and on porn sites
and it's everywhere.
And people are still
not willing to say
"I can't do this
with you anymore."
I called my oldest brother...
and I told him
that I just had seen a tape,
and it showed our niece on it.
You know, I didn't want
to bring it to my sister
because I don't know
how to bring this to her.
I couldn't really keep my head
in the game at this point.
What mattered was
me protecting my family
or-or me protecting my niece.
You know what I mean?
That's all that mattered to me.
And I was estranged
from the family.
They felt like I was tarnishing
the family's name.
Tarnishing the family name? No.
Robert tarnished
the family's name
by putting our niece, your
daughter, out there like that.
He set out to destroy
that family.
That's what I believe,
in my heart.
I believe he tried to divide
that family
with his poor behavior.
Sparkle is my friend,
she is my son's godmother.
She has been and is
like a mother to me.
I have always been
her little girl,
and I will always be
her little girl.
And I watched my friend give up
her career to save her family.
Robert knows what he did.
He's not confused
about what he did.
Once I came out publicly,
yeah, there was
a lot of blowback.
People were unbelieving,
people thought I was hating.
People thought I was jealous.
People were still able
to dismiss Sparkle
because they felt like
she's just trying to get money.
What happened to Sparkle
is like,
"You are messing with the money,
"you are in violation,
you are talking out of turn,
and now we're gonna
shut you down."
It run the gamut of loaded
and unloaded (bleep)
that people were saying
about me, to me,
to-- about my family, you know,
about my niece.
Her being a little fast girl,
like, come on.
She's 14 years old.
The adult is supposed to know
not to touch that.
GENGLER: I just remember
being completely blown away,
and for this to be happening not
only with a high-profile person
that you look up to and admire,
but also somebody
that you were very close with,
and at the time,
thought everything was fine.
I felt really upset
because at the same time,
I'm like, "Well, why wasn't
I there for her?
How did I not know? How could
I have been there for her?"
Thinking all these things
that I could've done.
(film projector clicking)
JOVANTE:
He has no moral clock.
And I can only imagine what
his wife and his children
have endured and did endure.
I can only imagine.
I know what I've seen.
I can only imagine.
I can
only imagine.
-ED GORDON:
You also have a family.
-Yeah.
How are they dealing with this?
You have two children.
Well, my wife is totally behind
me, because she knows the truth,
and-and she's in my corner.
ANDREA: He put me on the bus
in the middle of the night,
did not tell me
why we're going,
what we're going for.
He shipped me off to Florida,
and I'm just staying
in this house.
I don't know what's going on,
I got security at the door,
nobody's telling me
anything, like,
"Why are we here,
why did we leave Illinois?"
I'm pregnant, I'm supposed
to be going to the doctor,
at least once a week
at this point.
I should not be traveling.
"What is going on?"
No one would tell me anything.
I was just broken.
CRAIG:
Behind the scenes,
the allegations had come.
It was known this tape
was there, prior.
It was obviously buried
so that the rest of the world
didn't know about it,
until this tape and those
allegations popped up.
He put me on the bus
in the middle of the night,
did not tell me why we're
going, what we're going for.
He shipped me off to Florida,
and I'm just staying
in this house.
I don't know what's going on,
I got security at the door,
nobody's telling me
anything, like,
"Why are we here, why did we
leave Illinois?" I'm pregnant.
I'm supposed to be going
to the doctor,
at least once a week
at this point.
I should not be traveling.
"What is going on?"
No one would tell me anything.
I was under so much stress
that when I went to the ob-gyn,
they couldn't find
his heartbeat.
And I remember getting
to the emergency room
and my best friend Angie
was with me
and I just remember coming
through the door
and they had papers and signing
and people were grabbing me
and putting stuff in my arm
and I'm like, "Wait, wait,
wait, wait," like,
"what are you guys doing?"
And they're like, "We have to
induce your labor right away,
because we don't know
if the baby's gonna make it."
I just remember them
laying me on the bed,
and they were like,
"We're gonna give you Pitocin,
we're gonna get this going.
Come on, Mom."
And I went through the labor,
and I just remember
falling so in love
with Little Rob
because he came here so strong,
but I was in that much stress
that it put my unborn child's
life in jeopardy.
'Cause here I am,
by myself in Florida.
I don't know anybody,
I just have my best friend.
And they eventually, again,
had to go through ten people
to get him on the phone.
(sniffles)
"Mr. Kelly, do you know that
they induced your wife's labor?
Like, she just had Little Rob."
(sniffles)
He said he was coming back.
But again,
I don't know where he is.
And I remember after having him,
that's when that day happened.
MAN:
Mr. Kelly has been indicted.
There's been a warrant issued
for his arrest,
and the Chicago Police
Department is currently seeking
to arrest Mr. Kelly.
RICHARD DEVINE: We charge
that the acts took place
in Kelly's home in Chicago.
These indictments, hopefully,
will send a message
to sexual predators
that taking advantage of minors
will not be tolerated and that
there are severe penalties.
I'm sitting here with the baby,
and then it
comes across the screen,
they're like,
"R&B singer R. Kelly
has been arrested
on child pornography,"
and I just remember
my best friend was with me...
and she said
she don't know what happened,
but my body went limp,
and she said she caught Little
Rob before he hit the floor.
And I remember, like,
a buzzing sound.
It almost felt like
I couldn't hear.
And I saw the screen,
and they showed his name
and the police, and...
I just, I don't even remember
a lot after that.
REPORTER: What about
the child porn charges?
(women shouting)
CHANEY: The police
found media of R. Kelly
with plenty
of other young girls
that appeared to be underage.
NEWSWOMAN: Kelly is accused
of videotaping himself
having sex
with an underage girl.
Y'all need to leave him alone.
That's not R. Kelly.
Women lined up
to show support for R. Kelly.
I love me some R. Kelly.
JERHONDA:
I went to his trial
because I was a superfan
at the time.
NORCOTT: At the courthouse,
his eyes were always fixated
on the young girls.
Do you like teenage girls?
He invited me back to
his mansion in Olympia Fields.
You know what you did.
And he told me to bring
a bathing suit.
You know the turmoil you
brought into my kids' life...
I was 14 years old.
...and for that,
you can go to hell.