American singer-songwriter R Kelly sure isn’t going through the best time of his life, the ‘I believe I can fly’ singer was just a few days back sentenced to jail for 30 years for sexual abuse and sex trafficking row. Kelly was already in the news, making headlines, as a new twist has added more steam to his ongoing controversy. For the unversed, Joycelyn Savage- Kelly’s fiance, has written a letter publicly to appeal to the court to ease down the charges against the singer. She mentioned, My name is Joycelyn Savage, and I’m Robert Kelly’s fiancé[e].
She mentioned in the letter that the ‘disgraced’ singer is not the ‘monster’ the world thinks he is and alleged he’s a true ‘gentleman’. “Robert is not the monster that the government has described him to be. The Robert I know is very sweet, gentle, and kind. At the end of the day, he has always made sure that I’m taken care of, and any other women he was with as well,” she said.
Savage also claimed how the couple was deeply in love, “We have a very special connection and are deeply in love. I still support Robert to this day because I love him and will always be here to support him.” she said. She further continued by saying, “It breaks my heart that the government has created a narrative that I am a victim. I’m a grown woman and can speak for myself which is why I wanted to provide this letter to the court. He is a great man, with a great heart and deserves to be home with his loved ones who are ready to support him.”
But not many know, that the R&B singer had been subjected to sexual abuse and assault allegations for almost 2 decades now, right from the start of his career. For instance, his 1994 wedding with a pre-mature Aaliyah, who was only 15 at the time when Kelly, then 27, wed her. Despite Kelly’s counterargument that stated how Aaliyah had tricked him and married him by lying saying she was 18. Then in 1996, Tiffany Hawkins alleged the singer of ‘emotional distress, stating Kelly had been involved with her sexually since she was 15 years old, and called off the relationship when she turned 18. For the accusations, Kelly had to compensate for the damages caused with $10m and got the case settled.
In 2001, the singer again got into an ‘indecent relationship’ with one of his minor interns, aged 17, while the year that followed after that in 2002 he was dragged into two more court cases, one from impregnating an underage woman and forcing her to have an abortion and the other one accused him of videotaping her without her knowledge.
In the same year, in a bizarre set of events, Kelly was accused of further 12 cases of child sexual abuse and had gotten arrested for the same. Later in 2017, Kelly was accused by a bunch of young women who had alleged him of seducing them, when they approached him seeking help for their music careers. They shared about it saying he controlled “what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records”.
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Again in 2019, Kelly was charged for involvement in a sexual relationship with a minor, a 14-year-old, shockingly, the singer was further accused of more than 11 cases of sexual abuse and assault of girls aged 13 to 16. The same year, Kelly was charged with sex trafficking and prostitution accusations of minor girls and had even threatened the witnesses.