R. Kelly is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and former professional basketball player. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about him!
1.His full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly.
2. He was born January 8, 1967.
3. Kelly is the third of four children. Kelly’s single mother, Joanne, was a singer.
4. She raised her children Baptist.
5. Kelly’s father was absent throughout his son’s life.
6. Kelly’s family lived in the Ida B. Wells Homes public housing project in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
7. Kelly’s high school music teacher Lena McLin described Kelly’s childhood home: “It was bare. One table, two chairs. There was no father there, I knew that, and they had very little”. Kelly began singing in the church choir at age eight.
8. R.Kelly grew up in a house full of women, whom he said would act differently when his mother and grandparents were not home.
9. At a young age Kelly was often sexually abused by a woman who was at least ten years older than himself. “I was too afraid and too ashamed,” Kelly wrote in his autobiography about why he never told anyone. At age 11, he was shot in the shoulder while riding his bike home; the bullet is reportedly still lodged in his shoulder.
10. Kelly was eight years old when he had his first girlfriend. They would hold hands and eat make-believe meals inside their playhouse built from cardboard, where they “vowed to be boyfriend and girlfriend forever.” Their last play date turned tragic when, after fighting with some older children over a play area by a creek, Lulu was pushed into the water. A fast-moving current swept her away while she screamed Kelly’s name. Shortly after, she was found dead downstream. Kelly calls Lulu his very first musical inspiration
11. Kelly was a street performer under the Chicago ‘L’ tracks.
12. Kelly entered Kenwood Academy in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in the fall of 1981, where he met his music teacher Lena McLin, who encouraged Kelly to perform the Stevie Wonder classic “Ribbon in the Sky” in a high school talent show.
13. McLin encouraged a young Kelly to leave the basketball team. She said he was furious at first, but after his performance at the school talent show, he changed his mind.
14. Kelly played high school basketball with the late basketball player Ben Wilson. He sang “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” at Ben Wilson’s funeral
15. As a teenager, Kelly began street performing under the Chicago ‘L’ tracks before he eventually formed a group with his friends Marc McWilliams, Vincent Walker, and Shawn Brooks. In 1989, Kelly, McWilliams, Walker and Brooks formed the group MGM (Musically Gifted Men). In 1990, MGM recorded and released their first single “Why You Wanna Play Me”; after releasing the single, the group disbanded.
16. In 1991, Kelly signed with Jive Records and teamed with a new group from Chicago called Public Announcement.
17. Kelly’s mother Joanne died in 1993.
18. R. Kelly got his breakthrough in 1989 when he, along with Marc McWilliams, Vincent Walker and Shawn Brooks, participated on the talent TV show Big Break, hosted by Natalie Cole. Kelly went on to win the $100,000 grand prize.
19. Subsequently, Kelly’s debut album Born into the 90’s was released in early 1992 (credited as R. Kelly and Public Announcement). Released during the new jack swing period of the early nineties, the album yielded the R&B hits “She’s Got That Vibe”, “Honey Love”, “Dedicated”, and “Slow Dance (Hey Mr. DJ)”, all of which were led by Kelly.[27] During late 1992, Kelly and Public Announcement embarked on a tour called “60653”, whose title was the zip code of Kelly’s neighborhood] This would be the only album co-credited with Public Announcement. Kelly separated from the group in January 1993.
20. In 1996, Kelly married Andrea Kelly, his former backup dancer and mother to his three children.
21. He built a house in Olympia Fields and moved in in 1997. In January 2009, it was reported that Kelly’s divorce was finalize
22. His Olympia Fields house became the subject of a foreclosure lawsuit in 2011, and has since been bought by Rudolph Isley.
23. Kelly launched his own label, the Interscope Records-distributed Rockland Records. The label’s roster included artists Sparkle, Boo & Gotti, Talent, Vegas Cats, Lady, Frankie, Secret Weapon.
24. After a July 1996 brawl at a Lafayette, Louisiana health club involving Kelly and his entourage, Kelly was placed on a year’s unsupervised probation starting August 13, 1997, after being found guilty of battery. One of the victims, Christopher Mahoney, needed 110 facial stitches.
25. Also that year, 20-year-old Tiffany Hawkins sued Kelly for $10 million and accused him of having sexual relations with her when he was 24 and she 15. Kelly settled the lawsuit in 1998 for $250,000, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
26. On April 8, 1998, Kelly was arrested on three misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, including one charge on violating noise ordinance for playing his music extremely loud from his carProsecutors from the district attorney’s office dropped the first two charges on May 7 and the noise charge on July 22 that year
27. According to Vibe and the Chicago Sun-Times, Kelly and a then 15-year-old singer protege Aaliyah were illegally married in a secret wedding ceremony on August 31, 1994 in Cook County conducted by Reverend Nathan J. Edmond from Chicago.
28. Kelly was introduced to Aaliyah by her uncle, Barry Hankerson, just three years prior when she was 12 years old.The marriage was annulled in February 1995 at the behest of Aaliyah’s family by a Michigan judge.
29. Kelly and Aaliyah, however, both denied that the marriage occurred and even denied that their relationship had ever moved beyond friendship.
30. Despite denials of marriage, in May 1997 Aaliyah filed a lawsuit in Cook County to have the marriage records expunged. This action occurred in the midst of a suit filed by Tiffany Hawkins, who was seeking to use the marriage documents in her case. Aaliyah stated in court documents that she was underage at the time of marriage and, under Illinois state law, could not legally enter into marriage without parental consent.
31. On February 3, 2002, a video surfaced allegedly showing Kelly engaging in sex with, and urinating on, an underage girl. The story, which was released by an unknown source, was sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, the newspaper that broke the story on February 8, 2002.
32. This news surfaced as Kelly was to perform at the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics. In interviews with WMAQ television of Chicago and MTV News, Kelly said that he was not the man in the video.
33. In June 2002, Kelly was indicted in Chicago on 21 counts of child pornography.
34. That same month, Kelly was apprehended by Miami Police Department on a Chicago arrest warrant, and Polk County Sheriff’s Office conducted a search of Kelly’s residence in Davenport, Florida. During the search, officers recovered 12 images of an alleged underage girl on a digital camera – wrapped in a towel in a duffel bag – which allegedly depicted Kelly “involved in sexual conduct with the female minor.”
35. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the girl in the images obtained from Kelly’s Florida home also appears in the videotape which got Kelly indicted in Chicago. Kelly was arrested in January 2003 on those charges. In March 2004, these charges were dropped due to a lack of probable cause for the search warrants.[
36. After a number of delays, on October 27, 2006, a Cook County, Illinois court hearing for pre-trial motions set the date of the actual trial to February 7, 2007.[ On the date of the trial, Kelly’s lawyer informed the court that his client was unable to attend because he was “undergoing surgery for a burst appendix”. He also announced that Kelly was “in good condition and was expected to be released from the hospital later in the day.” Kelly’s attorney stated that Kelly (who pleaded not guilty) would be in attendance on the next trial date of February 21, 2007.
37. It had previously been announced by the court that the videotape that allegedly showed Kelly performing sex acts with an underage woman would be publicly shown as evidence in the trial. The trial, however, was delayed due to disputes over when the tape was made and to give medical recuperation time to the sitting judge following a fall resulting in broken bones. Later the case was set for a September 17 date.It took more than six months for the case to go to trial. Jury selection began on May 9, 2008, and the trial officially started on May 20 with opening statements from the prosecution and defense. After two weeks, the prosecution’s case wrapped on June 3 while the defense’s wrapped on June 9. After less than a day of deliberations, on June 13, a Chicago jury found Kelly not guilty of all 14 counts.
38. On July 17, 2017, Jim DeRogatis reported in BuzzFeed that Kelly was accused by three sets of parents of holding their daughters in an “abusive cult”.
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