Opinion: 13 Years After The Last R. Kelly Trial, The Culture Has Changed
Editor's note: This essay includes allegations of sexual assault and physical abuse.
On Wednesday, testimony is scheduled to begin in a Brooklyn courthouse in the first of two federal trials against singer, songwriter and producer R. Kelly. Across two sets of indictments in New York and Illinois, the one-time R&B king is accused of abusing 11 girls and women over more than two decades; making child pornography; making hush-money payments to silence alleged victims; and building a criminal enterprise specifically to "prey upon young women and teenagers."
Additionally, the New York prosecutors want to admit what they say is evidence that Kelly sexually and physically abused girls and women as far back as 1991, sexually abused a boy and committed bribery. Kelly has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and has consistently denied accusations that he abused anyone.
Often, when I've told people that I'm covering the New York trial, they have been confused. Allegations have, and so they ask me: Wasn't he arrested years ago? Yes: he was arrested most recently in July 2019, and he's remained in custody for the two years since, awaiting trial. But they may also be thinking of his first big trial in 2008 — and those accusations, and that trial, figure into some of the current charges.
