January 10, 2019 • 37 mins
In Part Two, Robert is joined again by Teresa Lee to continue discussing R. Kelly.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello friends, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once again
Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you everything
you don't know about the very worst people in all
of history. Today is part two of our epic two
part on Robert Kelly, better known as R. Kelly the King,
or at least like some level of baron of R
and B. Duke maybe count squid, No, that's way too
(00:29):
Squire of R and B would be like, yeah, I
don't know. I don't know enough about R and B
to make this joke better. How are you doing today, Teresa?
You're Theresa Lee. You're my guest on the first episode.
You're currently my guest on the second episode. You are
host of the podcast. You can tell me anything. You
are trying to get a word in edgewise as I
talk over you, like mayan, I was just agreein to
(00:51):
the things you said. Okay. I felt bad because I
feel like I definitely interrupted you a couple of times there. No,
I always look like I'm about to say something that's true.
I've been that's so true. I don't know why. I
think it's because I try to like seem attentive. You
have resting insight face oh, I was told by my
(01:12):
psychiatrist that I'm not particularly insightful, not told an evaluation.
I went to, this is not a real digression, quick sentence,
but I took an a d h D test and
then I got the whole evaluation and list everything you know,
like blah blah, like depression of blaa. And one of
them says insight and just said not extraordinary. I said, what,
(01:34):
I'm insightful? I mean I got similar feedback on a
B and E I was part of once, and I was, yeah,
it's hurtful to hear that from an evaluable, from a
clinical point of view, from a clinical evaluation of how
good you are breaking when nobody, nobody likes to hear that.
All right, you don't even to ask for more information,
because I will. It will just derail this conversation. Now,
(01:55):
that's the behind the bastards on me is going to
be a real great three partner coming out someday when
I Sophie is taking a picture of us right now. Fantastic.
All right, let's get back into part two now. When
we last left Robert Kelly, he had been declared not
(02:15):
guilty by a jury of his peers. Uh In a
court of law. So that's I mean, it's good for R. Kelly.
Let's hear about what happened there though, I mean, like,
you know, he does need help. Yeah, I would say
he would probably say that being declared not guilty of
twenty one counts of child pornographies it was a good
(02:36):
thing for him, true, Or maybe at this whole time
you wanted to be caught. Maybe the whole time he
wanted to be caught. Well, we'll see how you feel
at the end of this. In March of two thousand eleven,
Billboard magazine declared Robert Kelly the number one R and
B artist of the last twenty five years. Four years later,
Billboard published another article, this one ranking the thirty five
best R and B artists of all time. They put R.
(02:57):
Kelly at number fifteen, right under Luther Van Draw. I'm
no expert on the genre, but whenever people talk about
the goat in that particular type of music, are Kelly's
name always seems to be in the running. You know.
Over the course of his career, Kelly has sold more
than sixty million albums, which is an astonishing feat for
any artist of any era, in any genre of music.
(03:19):
Um Now. Whenever a famous person is accused of doing
terrible things, some chunk of their fan base will inevitably
rise to defend them. R kelly fans have a reputation
for being particularly devoted. Their defense of him is helped
by the fact that he was declared not guilty in
a court of law, but of course that does not
wipe away the numerous settled out of court lawsuits, or
the fact that he married a fifteen year old and
two thousand eight did not put an end to the
(03:40):
allegations against Kelly. We will be talking today about the
numerous details that have come out about his life in
the decades since his trial. In July of two thousand eleven,
the same year Billboard declared him the best R and
B singer of the last quarter century. R Kelly went
in for an emergency throat surgery who end up recovering
enough that by the end of that year he was
out touring again. And it was on that tour, at
(04:00):
a party after a show in Dallas, that R. Kelly
first met Kitty Jones. Now in two thousand seventeen, Kitty
was the subject of a blockbuster Rolling Stone article titled
Surviving R. Kelly. It's one of the two major pieces
on Kelly that's broken in the last year. The other
was a BuzzFeed article written by Jim Durgatis, formerly of
the Chicago Sun Times eternally mispronounced by me. The title
(04:24):
of Jim's article parents told police their daughter is being
held against her will, and R Kelly's cult marks probably
the strongest allegations made against the singer yet. So he
is now being accused of essentially running a sex cult.
And that's what we'll be talking about today. You know what,
(04:44):
nothing goes better with my early January as I'm struggling
to get off those Christmas pounds and I'm working to
get back into the groove, you know, getting right and
the yeah year. I just love listening to forty five
minutes or so of detailed recitations sex crimes that really
off the year. Good way to kick off the year,
(05:04):
Good way to kick off the year. Sometimes I just
look at pictures of John Wayne Gacy while I'm doing
push ups. That's not relevant, but that's your goals. Yeah,
that's that's that's my vision board. It's just John. It's
possible this podcast has done some damage to me. It's
possible Sophie's giving. You know, I think everyone guessed the
(05:28):
looks Sophie's giving me. Um, let's move on. So I'd
like to start this episode by talking about Kitty's story,
because it seems like what happened to her is emblematic
of what happened and is still happening allegedly to a
lot of other women. And again, I have tried to
be good about putting it allegedly here. This is all alleged.
(05:49):
This has been proven in a court of law. There's
a lot of evidence. But again, allegedly. Add that in
your head if I forget to drop it in at
some point. So uh. Kitty Jones says that she and R.
Kelly hit it off at this party after his show.
He invited her to hang out with him on the
next stop of the tour and then handed her a
piece of paper with his phone number on it. He
told her to text him. When she did, he instructed
(06:11):
her to always call him daddy. Next he texted her
sin Pick, which she did, and like that they were off.
He flew her out to Denver and here's the rolling Stone.
The rolling Stone. Here's rolling Stone was like what he's
been he's really been the point man on this story. Uh,
here's rolling stone. I got there before he did because he,
(06:34):
of course doesn't like to fly, so he's taking the bus.
Jones says she had sent Kelly racy photos while he
was en route to the hotel and was excited to
reunite face to face. As she waited in the hotel
room for Kelly to arrive, she heard a knock at
the door. He brushed past me. Jones says, I'm thinking
we're going to hug or peck each other, but he
plopped down on the couch and pulled out his penis
and started pleasuring himself. Now that's not a great first move,
(06:56):
but these are both adults, for one thing, so nothing
was going on here. And also everything is different for celebrities. Uh.
I was attracted to him and was just like, well, okay, fine,
she says. Maybe he just has weird ways of getting off.
The two had oral sex that weekend, with Kelly, according
to Jones, saying things like I gotta teach you how
to be with me and I gotta train you. He
was like a drill sergeant. Even when he was pleasuring me.
(07:18):
Jones says he was telling me how to bend my
back and move my leg here, I'm like, why is
he directing it like this? It was very uncomfortable. But
at the same time, he's one of the most famous
R and B singers in the world, super rich, flying
you out and giving you a bunch of attentions. So
while there were a bunch of red flags, it's easy
to see how someone in Kitty's position could convince yourself
to ignore them. I think everyone listening to this, if
(07:40):
you've been in relationships that have turned pear shape, have
the experience of ignoring red flags. They don't rich for
me to ignore, they don't have to be rich. So
if he's got tens of millions of dollars and he's
one of the most famous people in the industry that
you're in, it's easier to ignore those red flags. Was
that a great line from BoJack Horse? When you when
(08:00):
you're looking at things with rose colored glasses, ignore them.
All the red flags just look like flags. I just
interrupted you again. That's a red flag right there. Yeah,
it's all good. I talk a lot. You should interrupt
me because I interrupt people. WHOA Hey, now you see
you've just been You've just been going through some of
(08:22):
the stuff these victims have been doing. And there you go, Well,
that's just because I have Libra in my chart. So whoa, Well,
now I am going to interrupt. Astrology has been brought
into it, and that's the excuse I need to throw
my logic brain at this. Let me tell you why
I clapped the hood of my car whenever I speed
through a red light, because men are not superstitious. There's things, yeah,
(08:45):
like if you tap the hood of your car when
you run through a red light, the police can't catch you.
Oh that's why I do it and make a wish.
Oh okay, cool that the police won't catch me. If
the police won't get that, I feel like we're both
doing the same thing there. Okay. So yeah there were
some red flags, but yeah, it's easy to see how
she could have ignored them. At first, Kitty found herself
(09:06):
drawn more and more into r Kelly's world. She was
a fresh divorce back on the dating field for the
first time in years, and not really into you know,
dating sucks. Dating on just like meeting Randalls in places
is not the best thing. Ever, So having this rich,
famous guy whose art she loved to fly her all
around the world and treat her like the only woman
on earth seemed pretty great. Uh, you can see how
(09:27):
it would wipe some of those flags away and why
it would make her forget the unsettling news report she'd
been hearing about Kelly for years. They did come up
in conversations with her friends. Quote Rob kind of makes
you feel like you have to defend him. It's like
you and him against the world. If someone brought him
up in conversation, immediately a wall went up. You know.
Some of the first stuff Kelly told her was like
that his girlfriend had died and he'd watched her die
(09:49):
when he was eight. You know, he talked about his
mom dying. Like when we started this story. It's easy R. Kelly.
Just talking about his background can get you on a
side of it, Like he's been through some ship and
he'd just been to cleared. Not guilty in accord a law.
You can again, it's a good tender bio. Not guilty
in a Coorto law. That's actually my whole resume. Yeah, yeah,
(10:11):
not in prison currently. Um So. In September of two
thousand eleven, Kitty Jones flew to Chicago to visit R.
Kelly's Trump Tower apartment. Robert sent his driver to pick
her up from the airport and ordered her not to
talk to him and to report back if he talked
to her. From this point, she started noticing that all
the men in Kelly's orbit kept a strict distance from her.
In total, their relationship would last more than two years.
(10:32):
Kitty Jones did the thing that I think Hollywood has
taught all of us to do. She cast caution to
the wind, let love into her heart, and gave up
everything to embark on a magical journey with a rich suitor.
How many romantic comedies have the same basic plot. Working
woman and like a high demand career like a radio
DJ or an architect or whatever, you know, suddenly meets
this ridiculously wealthy man who sweeps her off her carefully
(10:55):
planned life path and off her feet, and like she
has this romantic it that's like half of the room
Ron comes I've seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty woman. This
is like the fifty shades of gray fantasy. Like he's
a little bit harder and creepy in some ways, but
he's also this super rich, famous guy, And I don't know,
I feel like it's one of those things where like
(11:15):
it could be easy to be like, how could you
let this thing go to where it's about to go. Also,
you want to trust you if you're a nice person,
you want to think the best of people. So it's
hard to look someone in the face would be nice
to you and be like you're bad because people are multifaceted.
They're not just good at bad and you know, yeah,
and they do bad things and that we do have
to take that into account, but they could be kind yeah,
(11:36):
And it's like anyone you're going to get into a
long term relationship with, you will notice certain red flags
about them because everybody has aspects of their behavior that
could turn into serious problems, right, And maybe she thought
she could fix it. Maybe she was like, oh, he's
getting better, that we are super good at lying to ourselves. Um,
And I think she made the same decision and where
(11:57):
there's a lot of other women that have made these decisions.
I just want to make it clear, like everything about
her actions up to this point makes sense to me. Sure.
I mean it is weird like when survivors come out
like women, mostly women, but not always women, but oftentimes
women get blamed for wanting to believe the best in people,
and so that I why did you, Why did you
go with them? Why did you Why did you not
say a thing? Because because they wanted to believe And
(12:21):
the blame is not pushed on the man for doing
the bad thing. But yeah, and it's all compounded when
like this is all happening in luxury, like first class
airfare and like gigantic, fancy, beautiful, furnished departments and like
all this like that has an impact. We're trained to
respond differently to that sort of thing. So in November,
Jones quit her job and left Texas. She moved to R.
(12:43):
Kelly's Trump Tower apartment. At least one of her friends
at the time encouraged her to do it, saying, you
only live once. I mean, fuck, it's R. Kelly good logic. Uh,
there was some weirdness right off the bat. In her
interview with Rolling Stone, Kitty recalled one of the first
orders Kelly gave her. He said, I have friends, and
I have girls I've raised. I didn't know what he
meant by raised at the time. He said, I eventually
(13:05):
want you to meet them, but I want to make
sure you're mentally ready for that. Oh no, unsetty. That's
a real red flag right there. Yeah, that is that's
like the size of that red flag they unraveled in
the Reichstag when the Third Reich fell. That that scale
of red flag. So as soon as she arrived, Kelly
(13:27):
required her to wear baggy sweatpants anytime Kitty went outside,
and to text him with extreme regularity so he always
knew where she was. She would send text like Daddy,
I need to go to the restroom if she needed
to like poop or something. Uh. New commands were introduced
with regularity. Kelly would ask her to stand up and
greet him whenever he entered a room. Kitty says it
took about a month for R. Kelly to hit her
(13:48):
for the first time. Um oh yeah, Well, I want
to like kind of interject a little on because I
think there's some stuff getting confounded, because I do think
like clearly he's mountain of his choos and clearly doing
things that without consent I'm sure with these girls. But
also like there is like the whole idea of like
you know, doms and subs that in itself, while if
(14:10):
you're outside of it could be funny, is not inherently bad.
Like if it was a consensual relationship of being like
I'm gonna text daddy whatever that like, it might be
like weird for someone who doesn't do it, but that
in itself, I don't think it is inherently a problem.
It's only a problem if it's non consensual, because there's
plenty of adults who get in relationships like that where
it's for both sides pleasurable to be the sub and
(14:33):
be the doms. So I just want to add that
because I don't think the idea of texting like, you know,
some people are into that, like oh text me every
time you go that a safe word and it's completely
you know, consensual, I think that would be fine. Clearly,
I don't think that's the case, but I don't want
to confound some of the elements with um terminal activity
(14:54):
number one. Aside from the allegations of physical violence, nothing
we're talking about right now is clear evidence of criminal activity,
right because if she's into it, or if she lied
about being into it, yeah, we should teach a woman
to be more clear about what they want. But you know,
if he said this is a thing i'm into, are
you down and she said yes, and she wasn't. That
(15:14):
is a little bit gray area because yeah, I don't know.
I know, like everything up until we hit physical violence point,
everything we're talking about could potentially be part of something innocuous.
All the behavior. Yeah, so um Kelly hitting her occurred
because she went back to Dallas for Thanksgiving and while
she was there, one of her friends or family members
(15:36):
showed her the infamous are Kelly Pete. She got angry
and called him to ask about it. He responded, bitch,
don't you ever fucking accused me of something like that.
When she flew back, Kitty claims R Kelly met her
at the airport. My heart was just beating through my chest.
He just turned into a monster. I blame myself because
I was like, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Jones claims. R.
(15:57):
Kelly got her back to his car and then began
slap her repeatedly. I was putting my hand over my
face and telling him I was sorry. He would start
kicking me, telling me I was a stupid bitch and
don't ever get in his business. Kitty Jones alleges that
seems like this took place roughly ten times in the
first year they lived together in between things would seem
to return to normal. They'd shop and have fun, and
once they've been together for over a year, he even
(16:19):
asked her to take part in his upcoming tour. At
the time, it probably looked like things were getting better,
like maybe she'd fixed some of the fund up things
about him. The violence dried up, and suddenly the relationship
started to look like it was going to be the
awesome ride it was always supposed to be. Here's like
gaslighting to be like here, I saw you doing a
bad thing and be like, don't accuse me of doing
a bad thing. It's like, no, no, I'm not accusing you.
(16:39):
I saw you do a bad things. It's on tape. Yeah,
that's that's straight up gas one to one. Yeah, yeah,
he's definitely gas lighting her. Um. Here's where the Rolling
Stone describing Kitty's role in the tour because he actually
gave her a job during the tour. After Kelly brings
Jones on stage, two men dressed in white lab coats
makers sign a waiver and chain her arms inside a
(16:59):
white cage. Kelly enters as a white sheet is draped
over the cage, obscaring the couple. The cage begins rocking
as the band's music intensifies, with Jones and Kelly eventually
shown silhouetted after Kelly simulates oral sex on Jones. The
two re emerge in a mock fatigue Jones has let
off stage. I've never paraded around anybody before, Jones says.
Kelly told her before the tour started, I'm going to
(17:19):
make sure people see us together. Hm, so again, drawing
her in. On January tween, after they got back from
the tour, R Kelly had Kitty Jones moved out of
his Trump Tower apartment and into a room in his
recording studio. She claimed she learned later that Kelly was
moving another girl into the Trump Tower apartment, but at
the time she thought they were just both kind of
transitioning over to a new place. Now. R Kelly never
(17:42):
told her this, but she says she eventually grew to
realize she was living with two other women in the
rooms attached to R. Kelly's recording studio. Kelly did his
best to stop the women from learning about each other.
The rooms were filled with cameras and the women weren't
allowed to leave without getting his permission first. It's a
testament to the degree of control he was exercising over
these people that it actually took a while for Jones
to realize she wasn't alone. Yeah, when Kitty Jones did
(18:06):
something r Kelly defined his misbehaving, he take away her
phone for two months, since she had to text him
to do stuff like use the bathroom or eat, this
effectively cut her off from being able to maintain essential
biological functions. She claims it was March two thirteen before
she actually met another one of R Kelly's girlfriends. Seems
like the wrong word. She says. He brought the woman
in naked and said, I raised her. I've trained this bitch.
(18:29):
This is my pet. Then he made the other woman
perform oral sex on her. Kelly describes the next chunk
of their relationship as six months of hell. Yikes. So
you're essentially grooming them to a point and then cutting
them off from they're regular lives and relationships. That he's
done the things that cult does. Yeah, he's doing all
(18:50):
of the things that coult does, except for inventing his
own language. I guess single ahead and well maybe I
mean he had to call she had to call him daddy,
Like there's probably more coded language. They had to use.
You're right, you're right, And there's the Rolling Stone article
includes images of the texts and stuff they've got her phone,
like text she would send him saying like I need
this food or like can I go to the bathroom
and stuff like that. So like some of this is documented, again,
(19:11):
not illegal. This, There are consensual relationships that work like this,
or at least at times there are some seven you know,
so again we're not condemning that, but clearly Kitty was
not giving enthusiastic consent, right, and then waits. So the
thing on stage, she signs a waiver on stage. Yeah, yeah,
it was part of like like an act. So the
(19:33):
whole gimmick is that's I think the gimmick is that
he's pleasuring a random woman. He's just so insatiable or
what the waiver. I think it's just because it's funny
to be like it's legal or something. Yeah, I mean like, oh,
you're gonna get hurt because I'm so good, Yeah, something
like that. Speaking of enthusiastic consent, you remember when I
said that a couple of sentences ago. We're back, we're
(20:04):
talking about products. Do you love a good service? Do
you like products? I love it. If you had to
rank products and services, would you put products first or services?
I think they go hand in hand. Okay, I'm gonna
go product that services me or services that I don't know? Services?
(20:26):
The product I do love being produced, Sophie. We brought
that around nicely. All right, let's talk about our Kelly Moore. Okay, great, Okay,
I thought you were going to go into read or something.
I am about to. Uh So we had just gotten
to the point where Kelly introduced Kitty to the women
(20:48):
other woman he had trained. Which are the other women
who are living in this weird Do we know how
many there were? I'll be getting to that. It's unclear
exactly how many exist. In total. There were three total
women living in the billing around this recording studio, plus
another woman in Trump Tower at the time, so at
least four ladies in like the Chicago area. But yeah,
(21:08):
so Kitty describes Yeah, the next chunk of their relationship
with six months of hell. This recording studio. Weird Erotic
Compound is the cult described in the BuzzFeed article. That
article starts with the story of j a mother who
alleges that R. Kelly brainwashed her daughter and brought her
daughter into this creepy carousel of abused women that seems
to exist if all this reporting is accurate. Between them,
(21:29):
Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed have done their homework. BuzzFeed talk
to Kitty Jones as well, in addition to two other
members of R. Kelly's inner circles. There's a lot of
sources for both of these articles. There's a lot of
research and backup that's been done. What they found suggests
that six women live in buildings owned by Kelly in Chicago,
in Atlanta at least six women, or at least in
two thousands seventeen at least six women. They were all
(21:50):
subject to the same sort of controls as Kitty Jones.
Kelly tells themone to eat in bathe makes them do
what he wants to their bodies, and of course he
films every sex act between them. Uh Jay claims that
her daughter, who of course was an aspiring singer, met
Kelly backstage after a show in Indio, California. You might
expect that experience to normally yield an autographed at best,
(22:11):
but Kelly listened to the nineteen year olds demo c
D and gave her a detailed and insightful critiques of
her performance. Now, this was in two thousand fifteen, and
most R and B fans would probably agree that R Kelly.
You know, of course, the mom's syched. If you're like
a fan R and B your daughter wants to be
in that genre and like one of the best guys
ever is listening to her demo CD and giving her critiques.
(22:31):
Of course, as a mom, you're probably excited. What happened
next was similar enough to what we saw with Kitty.
Kelly started flying Jay's daughter to hang with him, ostensibly
so he could help shape and boost your career. Jay
went along with the situation because, first off, who wouldn't
want your kid to be rich and successful? And second
her kid was nineteen, so there's something she could do
to stop it. And she may be like with parents
who don't understand the industry, might be like, oh, well,
(22:53):
this might just be part of it. They don't really know.
They don't really know, and again, there's nothing you can do.
So they were a air of the allegations against Kelly.
Both Jay and her daughter and Jay and her husband
tried to make sure that one of them would be
around whenever their daughter was with Kelly. But you know, R.
Kelly's a multi millionaire with essentially unlimited resources, so things
got started um Before too long, Jay's daughter moved in
(23:17):
with R. Kelly and quickly ceased almost all contact with
her parents. They still get the occasional scattered phone call,
but the last time they saw their girl was on
December one, two thousand and sixteen. It was as if
she was brainwashed. She looked like a prisoner. It was horrible.
I hugged her and hugged her, but she kept saying
she's in love and Kelly is the one who cares
for her. I don't know what to do. I hope
that if I get her back, I can get her
treatment for victims of colts, they can reprogram her. But
(23:39):
I wish I could have stopped it from happening. Buzz
put together a list of some other women. They believe
you're cut up in this. Whatever the thing is. This
was like seventeen, a thirty one year old din mother
who trained newcomers on how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually.
She has been best friends since high school with the
girl in the videotape for which Kelly was tried in
(23:59):
two thou and eight, she recently parted well. One of
them she recently parted ways with Kelly. These sources say
a twenty five year old woman who has also been
part of Kelly scene for seven years, a recent arrival,
A nineteen year old model who has been photographed in
public with Kelly and named on music gossip websites a
rarity among the women in his circle. An Atlanta songwriter
who began her relationship with Kelly around two thousand nine,
(24:21):
when she was nineteen. She is now twenty six, and
a eighteen year old singer from Polk County, Florida. Max
said the Florida singer is Kelly's favorite, his number one girl. Now,
you'll notice everyone involved in this is eighteen or older,
so it's possible that some were younger when things started.
So you know, there's no law being broken necessarily here,
(24:43):
except for the alleviations of physical violence. Those are just
allegations at this point. Now. Years ago, a former young
protege of R. Kelly had told Jim DeRogatis that quote,
he likes the babies and that's the sickness. He can
control her and she don't know no better. If the
details of these women are correct, it is possib well
Kelly has gotten over that sickness because these are all adults.
(25:03):
Or it might be evidence that underage women were never
the draw to him. Maybe it's always been about control
all along, and that's why he always sought out such
young women. If you take this view of it, then
maybe it just took him decades to build up the
skills necessary to do what he did to an adult
like Kitty Jones and other adults like who knows in
his twenties, he can only get away with doing it
sixteen year olds. Now he's like fifty something, he's able
(25:25):
to more effectively manipulate adults. And that's what it's about,
is the control. Maybe that's it. Uh. BuzzFeed also talked
to the parents of that eighteen year old singer from Florida,
kelly supposed New Favorite. She was seventeen when they met.
After some of Kelly's people picked her and a few
other young women out at a concert and pulled them
on stage during the show. Afterwards, one of Kelly's people
handed her his phone number. Her parents were okay with
(25:48):
them talking at first, because you know, they figured they
could make sure one of them was with her whenever
she met him, and then he thought it would be
a great opportunity for her if she had a future
in the music industry. This girl's mother told Jim de
rogattas that quote. My thing was I trusted. I have
never been in the music industry before. Ever. He is
a lyrical genius. He's R. Kelly. And the fact is
that he went to court, he was never found guilty,
(26:09):
he was acquitted, and we were led to believe there
was no truth in it. Now I got all these
people asking about why my daughter is there telling me
all of that the charges against Kelly was true? Well,
how come you didn't tell me before? I'd be pissed
about the case too. Now it's hard to say if
Kelly did anything illegal. Here, the girl's mom does alleged
that one day after school, her daughter met R. Kelly
(26:30):
after classes without telling her parents. First. They came to
the hotel and called the cops. Uh, and she came
down and you know, left with them. Uh. Kelly had
refused to speak to them. Um. Their girl was seventeen
at this point, and it would have been illegal if
they did anything at that point. But soon enough she
was eighteen and old enough to do whatever she wanted,
and as soon as she was eighteen, she moved in
(26:51):
with R. Kelly. One of Kelly's former close associates who
spoke with BuzzFeed is the person who claimed this lady
is Kelly's favorite, but he also says he witnessed the
singer punisher quote. He left the Florida woman on the
tour bus for like three days and she was not
allowed to come out. He said she didn't do her homework.
That's why she was punished, which was very confusing because
she had just graduated high school over the summer. Yeah,
(27:11):
what kind of homework is talking about? Oh boy, that
look is very ominous. What are you? What kind of homeworking?
It's something gross, It's something He's homework is standing for
something gross here. I'm gonna guess sure, okay, And that
is more or less the situation today. Kelly and his
representatives deny any wrongdoing. These are all consensual relationships between adults,
(27:32):
and right now, it truly seems like there is nothing
that can really be done about this from a legal standpoint. However,
several boycott campaigns have been raised against the musician hashtag
a mute R Kelly being the most notable. He has
had a number of his shows shut down, and it
does seem like a measure of justice has been done
via journalism in public outrage. Robert Kelly's popularity has fallen
(27:52):
significantly in the last decade, and two fifteen he released
The Buffet, his thirteenth studio album. It is the worst
performing album of his career, selling only twenty six thousand
copies in his first week. His two thousand sixteen album
Twelve Nights of Christmas seems to have sold better, peaking
at one seventy seven on the Billboard two hundred chart,
but he's not putting out the numbers he used to.
(28:12):
Critical reception to his music has also flattened out in
recent years. It's possible some of those is just do
the fact that he's in his fifties now and it's
not uncommon for people to but yeah, it seems like
it's possible that all of the reporting and all of
the boycott campaigns have had an impact. Jim de Rogatis,
the journalist most responsible for breaking the stories of Kelly's
alleged sexual abuse and exploitation of women, was actually mentioned
(28:34):
in a recent R Kelly song He's actually appeared on
several of R kelly songs over the years. In July
of two eighteen, R Kelly dropped the nineteen minute track
I admit here are some lyrics. Yeah to Jim Deer Gaddis,
whatever your name is, you've been trying to destroy him
for twenty five whole years, right in the same stories,
over and over again. Off my name, you've done, went
and made yourself a career. But guess what I pray
(28:56):
for you in family and all my other enemies. I'm
not gonna let y'all steal my jo way. I'm just
gonna keep on doing me now. I don't know what
else to say except I'm so falsely accused. Tell me
how you can judge when you've never walked in my shoes?
So easy to mess up someone else's life. You know,
I think that R Kelly. I don't because I kind
of think, like, is he an narcissist? But I don't
think he quite fits the bill. But the elements of
(29:17):
like he has some elements of that, like narcissists don't.
He doesn't believe he's wrong, and I do believe that
in that part he's telling the truth. So I do
think he truly believes he's falsely accused, because he in
his mind in a twisted way, he's justified all of
his interactions. But that's where it gets tricky, because people
with someone so famous that they love want that gotcha
(29:40):
moment where they're like, I'm wrong and I lied. But
I think they're never going to get that because I
don't think he believes that he lied. I think he
believes because he's done these somersults in his head to
convince himself. I think believes he's innocent because of whatever
his past or whatever, and so he's never gonna admit
he wide in that sense. So we just have to decide. Yeah. Now,
(30:05):
Variety interviewed Jim de Rogatis about this, and I'd like
to read a quote from that Variety article. This is Jim.
I've accomplished a lot in my life besides this R.
Kelly story. But I continue to get calls from sources
six or seven times a week, as I have for
eighteen years, saying R. Kelly has hurt me or my
daughter Allegedly. You're not a journalist or human being if
you get those calls and do not do your job.
(30:26):
Has it made me rich laughs. I have not gotten
rich from reporting on R Kelly. I've had a marriage ruined,
I've had many sleepless nights, and I have an ulcer,
which sounds self serving, and I don't mean to, because
what I've endured over eighteen years is nothing compared to
the stories I've heard from young women who had relationships
with him that left them devastated, destroyed their families, in
their lives to the point of attempting suicide. Those are
in public court documents and on the record interviews. In
(30:48):
October two, that's and eighteen, Kelly's wife went public on
the View with explicit allegations of physical abuse at the
hands of her ex husband. She says she went public
in essence to support the other women, like Kitty Jones,
who have talked openly about the abuse they claim to
have suffered at the hands of Robert Kelly. I'd like
to play a little bit of that. I'm gonna try
and get through without crying. Very difficult. Um. A lot
(31:09):
of people know that I'm a professional dancer, so my
body is my work. And I remember one time he
attacked me in the back of a hummer, and I
do suffer from PTSD because of it. Whenever hummers, when
I would see them on the road, I would shake
my hands with sweat and I would get nervous and
I couldn't breathe. And he attacked me one time in
the back of a hummer, and I thought I was
gonna die in the back of the hummer because what
(31:29):
he had done. He had taken this left arm and
pulled it behind me, and his weight was on my body.
But he didn't realize his forearm was on my neck.
So as he's pressing down, my breathing is getting labored.
And the only reason why I think I made it
out because I said, Robert, you're gonna kill me. I
can't breathe. You have to get your arm off of
(31:49):
my neck. And I just remember sitting in the back
of the hummer and it got blue, and I just thought,
oh my god, I'm gonna die in the back of
this hummer and he's gonna drive off with my body
in the back, see, and nobody's gonna know. Yeah. I
don't know what other sound to make at the end
of that. To end, I would like to go back
to that two thousands sixteen g Q interview. I quoted
(32:12):
at the start of the first episode, um, the writer
of that interviewed Kelly and got a lot of detail
about Kelly's own sexual abuse as a child. Robert's answers
to his questions are thoughtful and complex. At one point,
he reflects on the generational nature of abuse. This is
Robert Kelly quote. As I'm older, I look at it
and I know that it had to be not just
about me and them, but them and somebody older than
(32:32):
them when they were younger, and whatever happened to them
when they were younger. I looked at it as if
it was some sort of, like I don't know, a
generational curse, so to speak, going down through the family,
not just started with her doing that to me. Later
in the interview, r. Kelly admits that this experience caused
him to be sexual much earlier than was healthy. Then.
He said, quote, you know, no different from putting a
(32:53):
loaded gun in a kid's hand, he gonna grow up
to being a shooter. Probably. I think it affects you
tremendously when that happens at an early age, to be
more horny, or your hormones are more up than they
would be normally. Mine was the reporter asked him, and
do you think that set you on the path that
you kept on? R Kelly responded, Yeah, in a lot
of ways, absolutely, I think so. Dang, so I can
(33:16):
talk what I said about him not knowing he's wrong.
That sounds like a guilty man. That does sound like
a really fucking guilty man, right allegedly. You know what
sucks is that because people with stories like that, people
wait so long for that moment too, like you know
what you know already, but we're waiting for like a
a moment of truth. But you don't need that we
have it. But what sucks about that is like, let's
(33:36):
say he gets to ninety and it's like on his
deathbed and then he comes back and apologizes. You know,
people are going to forgive him, and that's the thing.
It's like, no, we've got to stop it in its tracks.
We have to stop pushing people to show us the truth.
We know the truth, Yeah, we know the truth in
this case, you don't need to wait for him to
like forgiveness, so we can forgive him because he's going
to like at the end of before he dies, he's
(33:57):
probably gonna be like, funk, all right, I want to
die and knowing that I made all my wrongs right
by then, he's already done too many wrongs. Yeah, we
should stop him from doing it now. But also like
he can't stop him with any laws. There's probably nothing
illegal being done other than I'm guessing he's hitting these
women pretty regularly, which is illegal. But if they don't like,
you can't just like have a cop hang out next
(34:19):
to him all the time. This is where I don't
condone this, but this is why I do think it's
funny when people make this joke. And for the record,
I don't condone this, but whenever people are like, you
know what, let's just do it back to them, and
I don't think we should do that. But when women
are very angry and say that, I'm like, yeah, because
they're not responding to the peaceful protests, Like you know,
(34:40):
he's just he knows, he's just going to get away
with it. There is no point where And again I'm
not actually this kind of joke. I don't really think
we should abuse him back, but it's like, I don't know,
there's more to be done than nothing. Yeah, I think
the boycotts are a lot I think trying to like
a lot of places have stopped reviewing his music. I
know Rolling Stone won't anymore. I think we're past that.
I think we're pass boycotting. I don't know what else
(35:02):
there is to do, though, other than you try to
take away this guy's money until they're unless they're Like,
as soon as someone else brings a case to court,
then you can support that person. But like, up until
that point, you can't. I don't know. Legally, there's not
much to do. What cut off his dick? All right? Well,
how about you and I rolled down to the Los
Angeles County court House and we file for a writ
(35:24):
of dick removal or just like spend his dick? That
was harsh. I don't think we should cut it off.
I think we should like suspend it until he stubbs
a temporary restraining word between him and his own painis confiscated,
confiscated by the government. I know exactly which l a
p D officer I would have delivered that. Okay, he
(35:47):
lives near my street. That all right? We successfully ended
on a light note with that joke about an L
A p D officers enormous uncomfortable hand ends. Uh, Teresa,
you got some plug doubles to plug Sure. I'm at
Larisa Ti on Twitter, on Instagram, and I have a
(36:08):
podcast called You Can Tell Me Anything. And I'm Robert Evans.
I have a book called A Brief History of Ice.
You can buy it on Amazon. I hurt myself with drugs, uh,
and you took we I gave you way too many
mush rooms without meaning to, and you tripped for hours.
(36:28):
It was a fun night. We were all way too high.
Well that's gonna do it for us today. You can
find this podcast behind the Bastards dot com. You can
find us on Twitter and Instagram and at Bastards pod,
and you can buy our merch at t Public Behind
the Bastards. We got cups, we got stickers, we got shirts,
(36:49):
we got hoodies. We have a scale replica of the
Fat Boy atomic bomb that was dropped in nineteen with
a picture of my face smiling on it. So all
of those products are more available on our t public
store Behind the Bastards. Check us out and until next week. Remember,
I love statistically stochastically roughly. You m
Hello friends, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once again
Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you everything
you don't know about the very worst people in all
of history. Today is part two of our epic two
part on Robert Kelly, better known as R. Kelly the King,
or at least like some level of baron of R
and B. Duke maybe count squid, No, that's way too
(00:29):
Squire of R and B would be like, yeah, I
don't know. I don't know enough about R and B
to make this joke better. How are you doing today, Teresa?
You're Theresa Lee. You're my guest on the first episode.
You're currently my guest on the second episode. You are
host of the podcast. You can tell me anything. You
are trying to get a word in edgewise as I
talk over you, like mayan, I was just agreein to
(00:51):
the things you said. Okay. I felt bad because I
feel like I definitely interrupted you a couple of times there. No,
I always look like I'm about to say something that's true.
I've been that's so true. I don't know why. I
think it's because I try to like seem attentive. You
have resting insight face oh, I was told by my
(01:12):
psychiatrist that I'm not particularly insightful, not told an evaluation.
I went to, this is not a real digression, quick sentence,
but I took an a d h D test and
then I got the whole evaluation and list everything you know,
like blah blah, like depression of blaa. And one of
them says insight and just said not extraordinary. I said, what,
(01:34):
I'm insightful? I mean I got similar feedback on a
B and E I was part of once, and I was, yeah,
it's hurtful to hear that from an evaluable, from a
clinical point of view, from a clinical evaluation of how
good you are breaking when nobody, nobody likes to hear that.
All right, you don't even to ask for more information,
because I will. It will just derail this conversation. Now,
(01:55):
that's the behind the bastards on me is going to
be a real great three partner coming out someday when
I Sophie is taking a picture of us right now. Fantastic.
All right, let's get back into part two now. When
we last left Robert Kelly, he had been declared not
(02:15):
guilty by a jury of his peers. Uh In a
court of law. So that's I mean, it's good for R. Kelly.
Let's hear about what happened there though, I mean, like,
you know, he does need help. Yeah, I would say
he would probably say that being declared not guilty of
twenty one counts of child pornographies it was a good
(02:36):
thing for him, true, Or maybe at this whole time
you wanted to be caught. Maybe the whole time he
wanted to be caught. Well, we'll see how you feel
at the end of this. In March of two thousand eleven,
Billboard magazine declared Robert Kelly the number one R and
B artist of the last twenty five years. Four years later,
Billboard published another article, this one ranking the thirty five
best R and B artists of all time. They put R.
(02:57):
Kelly at number fifteen, right under Luther Van Draw. I'm
no expert on the genre, but whenever people talk about
the goat in that particular type of music, are Kelly's
name always seems to be in the running. You know.
Over the course of his career, Kelly has sold more
than sixty million albums, which is an astonishing feat for
any artist of any era, in any genre of music.
(03:19):
Um Now. Whenever a famous person is accused of doing
terrible things, some chunk of their fan base will inevitably
rise to defend them. R kelly fans have a reputation
for being particularly devoted. Their defense of him is helped
by the fact that he was declared not guilty in
a court of law, but of course that does not
wipe away the numerous settled out of court lawsuits, or
the fact that he married a fifteen year old and
two thousand eight did not put an end to the
(03:40):
allegations against Kelly. We will be talking today about the
numerous details that have come out about his life in
the decades since his trial. In July of two thousand eleven,
the same year Billboard declared him the best R and
B singer of the last quarter century. R Kelly went
in for an emergency throat surgery who end up recovering
enough that by the end of that year he was
out touring again. And it was on that tour, at
(04:00):
a party after a show in Dallas, that R. Kelly
first met Kitty Jones. Now in two thousand seventeen, Kitty
was the subject of a blockbuster Rolling Stone article titled
Surviving R. Kelly. It's one of the two major pieces
on Kelly that's broken in the last year. The other
was a BuzzFeed article written by Jim Durgatis, formerly of
the Chicago Sun Times eternally mispronounced by me. The title
(04:24):
of Jim's article parents told police their daughter is being
held against her will, and R Kelly's cult marks probably
the strongest allegations made against the singer yet. So he
is now being accused of essentially running a sex cult.
And that's what we'll be talking about today. You know what,
(04:44):
nothing goes better with my early January as I'm struggling
to get off those Christmas pounds and I'm working to
get back into the groove, you know, getting right and
the yeah year. I just love listening to forty five
minutes or so of detailed recitations sex crimes that really
off the year. Good way to kick off the year,
(05:04):
Good way to kick off the year. Sometimes I just
look at pictures of John Wayne Gacy while I'm doing
push ups. That's not relevant, but that's your goals. Yeah,
that's that's that's my vision board. It's just John. It's
possible this podcast has done some damage to me. It's
possible Sophie's giving. You know, I think everyone guessed the
(05:28):
looks Sophie's giving me. Um, let's move on. So I'd
like to start this episode by talking about Kitty's story,
because it seems like what happened to her is emblematic
of what happened and is still happening allegedly to a
lot of other women. And again, I have tried to
be good about putting it allegedly here. This is all alleged.
(05:49):
This has been proven in a court of law. There's
a lot of evidence. But again, allegedly. Add that in
your head if I forget to drop it in at
some point. So uh. Kitty Jones says that she and R.
Kelly hit it off at this party after his show.
He invited her to hang out with him on the
next stop of the tour and then handed her a
piece of paper with his phone number on it. He
told her to text him. When she did, he instructed
(06:11):
her to always call him daddy. Next he texted her
sin Pick, which she did, and like that they were off.
He flew her out to Denver and here's the rolling Stone.
The rolling Stone. Here's rolling Stone was like what he's
been he's really been the point man on this story. Uh,
here's rolling stone. I got there before he did because he,
(06:34):
of course doesn't like to fly, so he's taking the bus.
Jones says she had sent Kelly racy photos while he
was en route to the hotel and was excited to
reunite face to face. As she waited in the hotel
room for Kelly to arrive, she heard a knock at
the door. He brushed past me. Jones says, I'm thinking
we're going to hug or peck each other, but he
plopped down on the couch and pulled out his penis
and started pleasuring himself. Now that's not a great first move,
(06:56):
but these are both adults, for one thing, so nothing
was going on here. And also everything is different for celebrities. Uh.
I was attracted to him and was just like, well, okay, fine,
she says. Maybe he just has weird ways of getting off.
The two had oral sex that weekend, with Kelly, according
to Jones, saying things like I gotta teach you how
to be with me and I gotta train you. He
was like a drill sergeant. Even when he was pleasuring me.
(07:18):
Jones says he was telling me how to bend my
back and move my leg here, I'm like, why is
he directing it like this? It was very uncomfortable. But
at the same time, he's one of the most famous
R and B singers in the world, super rich, flying
you out and giving you a bunch of attentions. So
while there were a bunch of red flags, it's easy
to see how someone in Kitty's position could convince yourself
to ignore them. I think everyone listening to this, if
(07:40):
you've been in relationships that have turned pear shape, have
the experience of ignoring red flags. They don't rich for
me to ignore, they don't have to be rich. So
if he's got tens of millions of dollars and he's
one of the most famous people in the industry that
you're in, it's easier to ignore those red flags. Was
that a great line from BoJack Horse? When you when
(08:00):
you're looking at things with rose colored glasses, ignore them.
All the red flags just look like flags. I just
interrupted you again. That's a red flag right there. Yeah,
it's all good. I talk a lot. You should interrupt
me because I interrupt people. WHOA Hey, now you see
you've just been You've just been going through some of
(08:22):
the stuff these victims have been doing. And there you go, Well,
that's just because I have Libra in my chart. So whoa, Well,
now I am going to interrupt. Astrology has been brought
into it, and that's the excuse I need to throw
my logic brain at this. Let me tell you why
I clapped the hood of my car whenever I speed
through a red light, because men are not superstitious. There's things, yeah,
(08:45):
like if you tap the hood of your car when
you run through a red light, the police can't catch you.
Oh that's why I do it and make a wish.
Oh okay, cool that the police won't catch me. If
the police won't get that, I feel like we're both
doing the same thing there. Okay. So yeah there were
some red flags, but yeah, it's easy to see how
she could have ignored them. At first, Kitty found herself
(09:06):
drawn more and more into r Kelly's world. She was
a fresh divorce back on the dating field for the
first time in years, and not really into you know,
dating sucks. Dating on just like meeting Randalls in places
is not the best thing. Ever, So having this rich,
famous guy whose art she loved to fly her all
around the world and treat her like the only woman
on earth seemed pretty great. Uh, you can see how
(09:27):
it would wipe some of those flags away and why
it would make her forget the unsettling news report she'd
been hearing about Kelly for years. They did come up
in conversations with her friends. Quote Rob kind of makes
you feel like you have to defend him. It's like
you and him against the world. If someone brought him
up in conversation, immediately a wall went up. You know.
Some of the first stuff Kelly told her was like
that his girlfriend had died and he'd watched her die
(09:49):
when he was eight. You know, he talked about his
mom dying. Like when we started this story. It's easy R. Kelly.
Just talking about his background can get you on a
side of it, Like he's been through some ship and
he'd just been to cleared. Not guilty in accord a law.
You can again, it's a good tender bio. Not guilty
in a Coorto law. That's actually my whole resume. Yeah, yeah,
(10:11):
not in prison currently. Um So. In September of two
thousand eleven, Kitty Jones flew to Chicago to visit R.
Kelly's Trump Tower apartment. Robert sent his driver to pick
her up from the airport and ordered her not to
talk to him and to report back if he talked
to her. From this point, she started noticing that all
the men in Kelly's orbit kept a strict distance from her.
In total, their relationship would last more than two years.
(10:32):
Kitty Jones did the thing that I think Hollywood has
taught all of us to do. She cast caution to
the wind, let love into her heart, and gave up
everything to embark on a magical journey with a rich suitor.
How many romantic comedies have the same basic plot. Working
woman and like a high demand career like a radio
DJ or an architect or whatever, you know, suddenly meets
this ridiculously wealthy man who sweeps her off her carefully
(10:55):
planned life path and off her feet, and like she
has this romantic it that's like half of the room
Ron comes I've seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty woman. This
is like the fifty shades of gray fantasy. Like he's
a little bit harder and creepy in some ways, but
he's also this super rich, famous guy, And I don't know,
I feel like it's one of those things where like
(11:15):
it could be easy to be like, how could you
let this thing go to where it's about to go. Also,
you want to trust you if you're a nice person,
you want to think the best of people. So it's
hard to look someone in the face would be nice
to you and be like you're bad because people are multifaceted.
They're not just good at bad and you know, yeah,
and they do bad things and that we do have
to take that into account, but they could be kind yeah,
(11:36):
And it's like anyone you're going to get into a
long term relationship with, you will notice certain red flags
about them because everybody has aspects of their behavior that
could turn into serious problems, right, And maybe she thought
she could fix it. Maybe she was like, oh, he's
getting better, that we are super good at lying to ourselves. Um,
And I think she made the same decision and where
(11:57):
there's a lot of other women that have made these decisions.
I just want to make it clear, like everything about
her actions up to this point makes sense to me. Sure.
I mean it is weird like when survivors come out
like women, mostly women, but not always women, but oftentimes
women get blamed for wanting to believe the best in people,
and so that I why did you, Why did you
go with them? Why did you Why did you not
say a thing? Because because they wanted to believe And
(12:21):
the blame is not pushed on the man for doing
the bad thing. But yeah, and it's all compounded when
like this is all happening in luxury, like first class
airfare and like gigantic, fancy, beautiful, furnished departments and like
all this like that has an impact. We're trained to
respond differently to that sort of thing. So in November,
Jones quit her job and left Texas. She moved to R.
(12:43):
Kelly's Trump Tower apartment. At least one of her friends
at the time encouraged her to do it, saying, you
only live once. I mean, fuck, it's R. Kelly good logic. Uh,
there was some weirdness right off the bat. In her
interview with Rolling Stone, Kitty recalled one of the first
orders Kelly gave her. He said, I have friends, and
I have girls I've raised. I didn't know what he
meant by raised at the time. He said, I eventually
(13:05):
want you to meet them, but I want to make
sure you're mentally ready for that. Oh no, unsetty. That's
a real red flag right there. Yeah, that is that's
like the size of that red flag they unraveled in
the Reichstag when the Third Reich fell. That that scale
of red flag. So as soon as she arrived, Kelly
(13:27):
required her to wear baggy sweatpants anytime Kitty went outside,
and to text him with extreme regularity so he always
knew where she was. She would send text like Daddy,
I need to go to the restroom if she needed
to like poop or something. Uh. New commands were introduced
with regularity. Kelly would ask her to stand up and
greet him whenever he entered a room. Kitty says it
took about a month for R. Kelly to hit her
(13:48):
for the first time. Um oh yeah, Well, I want
to like kind of interject a little on because I
think there's some stuff getting confounded, because I do think
like clearly he's mountain of his choos and clearly doing
things that without consent I'm sure with these girls. But
also like there is like the whole idea of like
you know, doms and subs that in itself, while if
(14:10):
you're outside of it could be funny, is not inherently bad.
Like if it was a consensual relationship of being like
I'm gonna text daddy whatever that like, it might be
like weird for someone who doesn't do it, but that
in itself, I don't think it is inherently a problem.
It's only a problem if it's non consensual, because there's
plenty of adults who get in relationships like that where
it's for both sides pleasurable to be the sub and
(14:33):
be the doms. So I just want to add that
because I don't think the idea of texting like, you know,
some people are into that, like oh text me every
time you go that a safe word and it's completely
you know, consensual, I think that would be fine. Clearly,
I don't think that's the case, but I don't want
to confound some of the elements with um terminal activity
(14:54):
number one. Aside from the allegations of physical violence, nothing
we're talking about right now is clear evidence of criminal activity,
right because if she's into it, or if she lied
about being into it, yeah, we should teach a woman
to be more clear about what they want. But you know,
if he said this is a thing i'm into, are
you down and she said yes, and she wasn't. That
(15:14):
is a little bit gray area because yeah, I don't know.
I know, like everything up until we hit physical violence point,
everything we're talking about could potentially be part of something innocuous.
All the behavior. Yeah, so um Kelly hitting her occurred
because she went back to Dallas for Thanksgiving and while
she was there, one of her friends or family members
(15:36):
showed her the infamous are Kelly Pete. She got angry
and called him to ask about it. He responded, bitch,
don't you ever fucking accused me of something like that.
When she flew back, Kitty claims R Kelly met her
at the airport. My heart was just beating through my chest.
He just turned into a monster. I blame myself because
I was like, maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Jones claims. R.
(15:57):
Kelly got her back to his car and then began
slap her repeatedly. I was putting my hand over my
face and telling him I was sorry. He would start
kicking me, telling me I was a stupid bitch and
don't ever get in his business. Kitty Jones alleges that
seems like this took place roughly ten times in the
first year they lived together in between things would seem
to return to normal. They'd shop and have fun, and
once they've been together for over a year, he even
(16:19):
asked her to take part in his upcoming tour. At
the time, it probably looked like things were getting better,
like maybe she'd fixed some of the fund up things
about him. The violence dried up, and suddenly the relationship
started to look like it was going to be the
awesome ride it was always supposed to be. Here's like
gaslighting to be like here, I saw you doing a
bad thing and be like, don't accuse me of doing
a bad thing. It's like, no, no, I'm not accusing you.
(16:39):
I saw you do a bad things. It's on tape. Yeah,
that's that's straight up gas one to one. Yeah, yeah,
he's definitely gas lighting her. Um. Here's where the Rolling
Stone describing Kitty's role in the tour because he actually
gave her a job during the tour. After Kelly brings
Jones on stage, two men dressed in white lab coats
makers sign a waiver and chain her arms inside a
(16:59):
white cage. Kelly enters as a white sheet is draped
over the cage, obscaring the couple. The cage begins rocking
as the band's music intensifies, with Jones and Kelly eventually
shown silhouetted after Kelly simulates oral sex on Jones. The
two re emerge in a mock fatigue Jones has let
off stage. I've never paraded around anybody before, Jones says.
Kelly told her before the tour started, I'm going to
(17:19):
make sure people see us together. Hm, so again, drawing
her in. On January tween, after they got back from
the tour, R Kelly had Kitty Jones moved out of
his Trump Tower apartment and into a room in his
recording studio. She claimed she learned later that Kelly was
moving another girl into the Trump Tower apartment, but at
the time she thought they were just both kind of
transitioning over to a new place. Now. R Kelly never
(17:42):
told her this, but she says she eventually grew to
realize she was living with two other women in the
rooms attached to R. Kelly's recording studio. Kelly did his
best to stop the women from learning about each other.
The rooms were filled with cameras and the women weren't
allowed to leave without getting his permission first. It's a
testament to the degree of control he was exercising over
these people that it actually took a while for Jones
to realize she wasn't alone. Yeah, when Kitty Jones did
(18:06):
something r Kelly defined his misbehaving, he take away her
phone for two months, since she had to text him
to do stuff like use the bathroom or eat, this
effectively cut her off from being able to maintain essential
biological functions. She claims it was March two thirteen before
she actually met another one of R Kelly's girlfriends. Seems
like the wrong word. She says. He brought the woman
in naked and said, I raised her. I've trained this bitch.
(18:29):
This is my pet. Then he made the other woman
perform oral sex on her. Kelly describes the next chunk
of their relationship as six months of hell. Yikes. So
you're essentially grooming them to a point and then cutting
them off from they're regular lives and relationships. That he's
done the things that cult does. Yeah, he's doing all
(18:50):
of the things that coult does, except for inventing his
own language. I guess single ahead and well maybe I
mean he had to call she had to call him daddy,
Like there's probably more coded language. They had to use.
You're right, you're right, And there's the Rolling Stone article
includes images of the texts and stuff they've got her phone,
like text she would send him saying like I need
this food or like can I go to the bathroom
and stuff like that. So like some of this is documented, again,
(19:11):
not illegal. This, There are consensual relationships that work like this,
or at least at times there are some seven you know,
so again we're not condemning that, but clearly Kitty was
not giving enthusiastic consent, right, and then waits. So the
thing on stage, she signs a waiver on stage. Yeah, yeah,
it was part of like like an act. So the
(19:33):
whole gimmick is that's I think the gimmick is that
he's pleasuring a random woman. He's just so insatiable or
what the waiver. I think it's just because it's funny
to be like it's legal or something. Yeah, I mean like, oh,
you're gonna get hurt because I'm so good, Yeah, something
like that. Speaking of enthusiastic consent, you remember when I
said that a couple of sentences ago. We're back, we're
(20:04):
talking about products. Do you love a good service? Do
you like products? I love it. If you had to
rank products and services, would you put products first or services?
I think they go hand in hand. Okay, I'm gonna
go product that services me or services that I don't know? Services?
(20:26):
The product I do love being produced, Sophie. We brought
that around nicely. All right, let's talk about our Kelly Moore. Okay, great, Okay,
I thought you were going to go into read or something.
I am about to. Uh So we had just gotten
to the point where Kelly introduced Kitty to the women
(20:48):
other woman he had trained. Which are the other women
who are living in this weird Do we know how
many there were? I'll be getting to that. It's unclear
exactly how many exist. In total. There were three total
women living in the billing around this recording studio, plus
another woman in Trump Tower at the time, so at
least four ladies in like the Chicago area. But yeah,
(21:08):
so Kitty describes Yeah, the next chunk of their relationship
with six months of hell. This recording studio. Weird Erotic
Compound is the cult described in the BuzzFeed article. That
article starts with the story of j a mother who
alleges that R. Kelly brainwashed her daughter and brought her
daughter into this creepy carousel of abused women that seems
to exist if all this reporting is accurate. Between them,
(21:29):
Rolling Stone and BuzzFeed have done their homework. BuzzFeed talk
to Kitty Jones as well, in addition to two other
members of R. Kelly's inner circles. There's a lot of
sources for both of these articles. There's a lot of
research and backup that's been done. What they found suggests
that six women live in buildings owned by Kelly in Chicago,
in Atlanta at least six women, or at least in
two thousands seventeen at least six women. They were all
(21:50):
subject to the same sort of controls as Kitty Jones.
Kelly tells themone to eat in bathe makes them do
what he wants to their bodies, and of course he
films every sex act between them. Uh Jay claims that
her daughter, who of course was an aspiring singer, met
Kelly backstage after a show in Indio, California. You might
expect that experience to normally yield an autographed at best,
(22:11):
but Kelly listened to the nineteen year olds demo c
D and gave her a detailed and insightful critiques of
her performance. Now, this was in two thousand fifteen, and
most R and B fans would probably agree that R Kelly.
You know, of course, the mom's syched. If you're like
a fan R and B your daughter wants to be
in that genre and like one of the best guys
ever is listening to her demo CD and giving her critiques.
(22:31):
Of course, as a mom, you're probably excited. What happened
next was similar enough to what we saw with Kitty.
Kelly started flying Jay's daughter to hang with him, ostensibly
so he could help shape and boost your career. Jay
went along with the situation because, first off, who wouldn't
want your kid to be rich and successful? And second
her kid was nineteen, so there's something she could do
to stop it. And she may be like with parents
who don't understand the industry, might be like, oh, well,
(22:53):
this might just be part of it. They don't really know.
They don't really know, and again, there's nothing you can do.
So they were a air of the allegations against Kelly.
Both Jay and her daughter and Jay and her husband
tried to make sure that one of them would be
around whenever their daughter was with Kelly. But you know, R.
Kelly's a multi millionaire with essentially unlimited resources, so things
got started um Before too long, Jay's daughter moved in
(23:17):
with R. Kelly and quickly ceased almost all contact with
her parents. They still get the occasional scattered phone call,
but the last time they saw their girl was on
December one, two thousand and sixteen. It was as if
she was brainwashed. She looked like a prisoner. It was horrible.
I hugged her and hugged her, but she kept saying
she's in love and Kelly is the one who cares
for her. I don't know what to do. I hope
that if I get her back, I can get her
treatment for victims of colts, they can reprogram her. But
(23:39):
I wish I could have stopped it from happening. Buzz
put together a list of some other women. They believe
you're cut up in this. Whatever the thing is. This
was like seventeen, a thirty one year old din mother
who trained newcomers on how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually.
She has been best friends since high school with the
girl in the videotape for which Kelly was tried in
(23:59):
two thou and eight, she recently parted well. One of
them she recently parted ways with Kelly. These sources say
a twenty five year old woman who has also been
part of Kelly scene for seven years, a recent arrival,
A nineteen year old model who has been photographed in
public with Kelly and named on music gossip websites a
rarity among the women in his circle. An Atlanta songwriter
who began her relationship with Kelly around two thousand nine,
(24:21):
when she was nineteen. She is now twenty six, and
a eighteen year old singer from Polk County, Florida. Max
said the Florida singer is Kelly's favorite, his number one girl. Now,
you'll notice everyone involved in this is eighteen or older,
so it's possible that some were younger when things started.
So you know, there's no law being broken necessarily here,
(24:43):
except for the alleviations of physical violence. Those are just
allegations at this point. Now. Years ago, a former young
protege of R. Kelly had told Jim DeRogatis that quote,
he likes the babies and that's the sickness. He can
control her and she don't know no better. If the
details of these women are correct, it is possib well
Kelly has gotten over that sickness because these are all adults.
(25:03):
Or it might be evidence that underage women were never
the draw to him. Maybe it's always been about control
all along, and that's why he always sought out such
young women. If you take this view of it, then
maybe it just took him decades to build up the
skills necessary to do what he did to an adult
like Kitty Jones and other adults like who knows in
his twenties, he can only get away with doing it
sixteen year olds. Now he's like fifty something, he's able
(25:25):
to more effectively manipulate adults. And that's what it's about,
is the control. Maybe that's it. Uh. BuzzFeed also talked
to the parents of that eighteen year old singer from Florida,
kelly supposed New Favorite. She was seventeen when they met.
After some of Kelly's people picked her and a few
other young women out at a concert and pulled them
on stage during the show. Afterwards, one of Kelly's people
handed her his phone number. Her parents were okay with
(25:48):
them talking at first, because you know, they figured they
could make sure one of them was with her whenever
she met him, and then he thought it would be
a great opportunity for her if she had a future
in the music industry. This girl's mother told Jim de
rogattas that quote. My thing was I trusted. I have
never been in the music industry before. Ever. He is
a lyrical genius. He's R. Kelly. And the fact is
that he went to court, he was never found guilty,
(26:09):
he was acquitted, and we were led to believe there
was no truth in it. Now I got all these
people asking about why my daughter is there telling me
all of that the charges against Kelly was true? Well,
how come you didn't tell me before? I'd be pissed
about the case too. Now it's hard to say if
Kelly did anything illegal. Here, the girl's mom does alleged
that one day after school, her daughter met R. Kelly
(26:30):
after classes without telling her parents. First. They came to
the hotel and called the cops. Uh, and she came
down and you know, left with them. Uh. Kelly had
refused to speak to them. Um. Their girl was seventeen
at this point, and it would have been illegal if
they did anything at that point. But soon enough she
was eighteen and old enough to do whatever she wanted,
and as soon as she was eighteen, she moved in
(26:51):
with R. Kelly. One of Kelly's former close associates who
spoke with BuzzFeed is the person who claimed this lady
is Kelly's favorite, but he also says he witnessed the
singer punisher quote. He left the Florida woman on the
tour bus for like three days and she was not
allowed to come out. He said she didn't do her homework.
That's why she was punished, which was very confusing because
she had just graduated high school over the summer. Yeah,
(27:11):
what kind of homework is talking about? Oh boy, that
look is very ominous. What are you? What kind of homeworking?
It's something gross, It's something He's homework is standing for
something gross here. I'm gonna guess sure, okay, And that
is more or less the situation today. Kelly and his
representatives deny any wrongdoing. These are all consensual relationships between adults,
(27:32):
and right now, it truly seems like there is nothing
that can really be done about this from a legal standpoint. However,
several boycott campaigns have been raised against the musician hashtag
a mute R Kelly being the most notable. He has
had a number of his shows shut down, and it
does seem like a measure of justice has been done
via journalism in public outrage. Robert Kelly's popularity has fallen
(27:52):
significantly in the last decade, and two fifteen he released
The Buffet, his thirteenth studio album. It is the worst
performing album of his career, selling only twenty six thousand
copies in his first week. His two thousand sixteen album
Twelve Nights of Christmas seems to have sold better, peaking
at one seventy seven on the Billboard two hundred chart,
but he's not putting out the numbers he used to.
(28:12):
Critical reception to his music has also flattened out in
recent years. It's possible some of those is just do
the fact that he's in his fifties now and it's
not uncommon for people to but yeah, it seems like
it's possible that all of the reporting and all of
the boycott campaigns have had an impact. Jim de Rogatis,
the journalist most responsible for breaking the stories of Kelly's
alleged sexual abuse and exploitation of women, was actually mentioned
(28:34):
in a recent R Kelly song He's actually appeared on
several of R kelly songs over the years. In July
of two eighteen, R Kelly dropped the nineteen minute track
I admit here are some lyrics. Yeah to Jim Deer Gaddis,
whatever your name is, you've been trying to destroy him
for twenty five whole years, right in the same stories,
over and over again. Off my name, you've done, went
and made yourself a career. But guess what I pray
(28:56):
for you in family and all my other enemies. I'm
not gonna let y'all steal my jo way. I'm just
gonna keep on doing me now. I don't know what
else to say except I'm so falsely accused. Tell me
how you can judge when you've never walked in my shoes?
So easy to mess up someone else's life. You know,
I think that R Kelly. I don't because I kind
of think, like, is he an narcissist? But I don't
think he quite fits the bill. But the elements of
(29:17):
like he has some elements of that, like narcissists don't.
He doesn't believe he's wrong, and I do believe that
in that part he's telling the truth. So I do
think he truly believes he's falsely accused, because he in
his mind in a twisted way, he's justified all of
his interactions. But that's where it gets tricky, because people
with someone so famous that they love want that gotcha
(29:40):
moment where they're like, I'm wrong and I lied. But
I think they're never going to get that because I
don't think he believes that he lied. I think he
believes because he's done these somersults in his head to
convince himself. I think believes he's innocent because of whatever
his past or whatever, and so he's never gonna admit
he wide in that sense. So we just have to decide. Yeah. Now,
(30:05):
Variety interviewed Jim de Rogatis about this, and I'd like
to read a quote from that Variety article. This is Jim.
I've accomplished a lot in my life besides this R.
Kelly story. But I continue to get calls from sources
six or seven times a week, as I have for
eighteen years, saying R. Kelly has hurt me or my
daughter Allegedly. You're not a journalist or human being if
you get those calls and do not do your job.
(30:26):
Has it made me rich laughs. I have not gotten
rich from reporting on R Kelly. I've had a marriage ruined,
I've had many sleepless nights, and I have an ulcer,
which sounds self serving, and I don't mean to, because
what I've endured over eighteen years is nothing compared to
the stories I've heard from young women who had relationships
with him that left them devastated, destroyed their families, in
their lives to the point of attempting suicide. Those are
in public court documents and on the record interviews. In
(30:48):
October two, that's and eighteen, Kelly's wife went public on
the View with explicit allegations of physical abuse at the
hands of her ex husband. She says she went public
in essence to support the other women, like Kitty Jones,
who have talked openly about the abuse they claim to
have suffered at the hands of Robert Kelly. I'd like
to play a little bit of that. I'm gonna try
and get through without crying. Very difficult. Um. A lot
(31:09):
of people know that I'm a professional dancer, so my
body is my work. And I remember one time he
attacked me in the back of a hummer, and I
do suffer from PTSD because of it. Whenever hummers, when
I would see them on the road, I would shake
my hands with sweat and I would get nervous and
I couldn't breathe. And he attacked me one time in
the back of a hummer, and I thought I was
gonna die in the back of the hummer because what
(31:29):
he had done. He had taken this left arm and
pulled it behind me, and his weight was on my body.
But he didn't realize his forearm was on my neck.
So as he's pressing down, my breathing is getting labored.
And the only reason why I think I made it
out because I said, Robert, you're gonna kill me. I
can't breathe. You have to get your arm off of
(31:49):
my neck. And I just remember sitting in the back
of the hummer and it got blue, and I just thought,
oh my god, I'm gonna die in the back of
this hummer and he's gonna drive off with my body
in the back, see, and nobody's gonna know. Yeah. I
don't know what other sound to make at the end
of that. To end, I would like to go back
to that two thousands sixteen g Q interview. I quoted
(32:12):
at the start of the first episode, um, the writer
of that interviewed Kelly and got a lot of detail
about Kelly's own sexual abuse as a child. Robert's answers
to his questions are thoughtful and complex. At one point,
he reflects on the generational nature of abuse. This is
Robert Kelly quote. As I'm older, I look at it
and I know that it had to be not just
about me and them, but them and somebody older than
(32:32):
them when they were younger, and whatever happened to them
when they were younger. I looked at it as if
it was some sort of, like I don't know, a
generational curse, so to speak, going down through the family,
not just started with her doing that to me. Later
in the interview, r. Kelly admits that this experience caused
him to be sexual much earlier than was healthy. Then.
He said, quote, you know, no different from putting a
(32:53):
loaded gun in a kid's hand, he gonna grow up
to being a shooter. Probably. I think it affects you
tremendously when that happens at an early age, to be
more horny, or your hormones are more up than they
would be normally. Mine was the reporter asked him, and
do you think that set you on the path that
you kept on? R Kelly responded, Yeah, in a lot
of ways, absolutely, I think so. Dang, so I can
(33:16):
talk what I said about him not knowing he's wrong.
That sounds like a guilty man. That does sound like
a really fucking guilty man, right allegedly. You know what
sucks is that because people with stories like that, people
wait so long for that moment too, like you know
what you know already, but we're waiting for like a
a moment of truth. But you don't need that we
have it. But what sucks about that is like, let's
(33:36):
say he gets to ninety and it's like on his
deathbed and then he comes back and apologizes. You know,
people are going to forgive him, and that's the thing.
It's like, no, we've got to stop it in its tracks.
We have to stop pushing people to show us the truth.
We know the truth, Yeah, we know the truth in
this case, you don't need to wait for him to
like forgiveness, so we can forgive him because he's going
to like at the end of before he dies, he's
(33:57):
probably gonna be like, funk, all right, I want to
die and knowing that I made all my wrongs right
by then, he's already done too many wrongs. Yeah, we
should stop him from doing it now. But also like
he can't stop him with any laws. There's probably nothing
illegal being done other than I'm guessing he's hitting these
women pretty regularly, which is illegal. But if they don't like,
you can't just like have a cop hang out next
(34:19):
to him all the time. This is where I don't
condone this, but this is why I do think it's
funny when people make this joke. And for the record,
I don't condone this, but whenever people are like, you
know what, let's just do it back to them, and
I don't think we should do that. But when women
are very angry and say that, I'm like, yeah, because
they're not responding to the peaceful protests, Like you know,
(34:40):
he's just he knows, he's just going to get away
with it. There is no point where And again I'm
not actually this kind of joke. I don't really think
we should abuse him back, but it's like, I don't know,
there's more to be done than nothing. Yeah, I think
the boycotts are a lot I think trying to like
a lot of places have stopped reviewing his music. I
know Rolling Stone won't anymore. I think we're past that.
I think we're pass boycotting. I don't know what else
(35:02):
there is to do, though, other than you try to
take away this guy's money until they're unless they're Like,
as soon as someone else brings a case to court,
then you can support that person. But like, up until
that point, you can't. I don't know. Legally, there's not
much to do. What cut off his dick? All right? Well,
how about you and I rolled down to the Los
Angeles County court House and we file for a writ
(35:24):
of dick removal or just like spend his dick? That
was harsh. I don't think we should cut it off.
I think we should like suspend it until he stubbs
a temporary restraining word between him and his own painis confiscated,
confiscated by the government. I know exactly which l a
p D officer I would have delivered that. Okay, he
(35:47):
lives near my street. That all right? We successfully ended
on a light note with that joke about an L
A p D officers enormous uncomfortable hand ends. Uh, Teresa,
you got some plug doubles to plug Sure. I'm at
Larisa Ti on Twitter, on Instagram, and I have a
(36:08):
podcast called You Can Tell Me Anything. And I'm Robert Evans.
I have a book called A Brief History of Ice.
You can buy it on Amazon. I hurt myself with drugs, uh,
and you took we I gave you way too many
mush rooms without meaning to, and you tripped for hours.
(36:28):
It was a fun night. We were all way too high.
Well that's gonna do it for us today. You can
find this podcast behind the Bastards dot com. You can
find us on Twitter and Instagram and at Bastards pod,
and you can buy our merch at t Public Behind
the Bastards. We got cups, we got stickers, we got shirts,
(36:49):
we got hoodies. We have a scale replica of the
Fat Boy atomic bomb that was dropped in nineteen with
a picture of my face smiling on it. So all
of those products are more available on our t public
store Behind the Bastards. Check us out and until next week. Remember,
I love statistically stochastically roughly. You m
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.