R Kelly walked out of a live video interview with HuffPost Live after being questioned by host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani about whether his current album, The Buffet, is not selling as well as the singer’s previous efforts due to long-term allegations against Kelly of sexual misconduct.
Kelly has repeatedly been accused – but never convicted – of sexually abusing minors. In 2008 he was found not guilty on 14 charges of having child abuse images after the main witness, a 23-year-old woman alleged to feature in a sex video made by Kelly 10 years previously, refused to testify. In 1996, he settled another case alleging that he had had sex with a minor with a payment of $250,000. He also married the late singer Aaliyah when she was 15.
Compared to Kelly’s previous albums – including his sexually charged debut 12 Play, which sold 6m in the US, and his 2013 effort Black Panties, sales of The Buffet have been sluggish, inspiring Kelly to post a YouTube video, subsequently removed, imploring fans to support it. “I had put my all out into this project, but sometimes you could put a million percent into something, but if the support is not there it will miss its chance to go down in history,” he explained to Modarressy-Tehrani. He blamed free downloads for the record’s poor sales.
Taking questions from Twitter, Modarressy-Tehrani suggested that the allegations against Kelly were putting off fans. She quoted one reader saying: “Would I let R Kelly babysit my daughters? Fuck no. Would I play his music at a family party? Ya gotdamn right.”
Kelly responded: “I say fuck that, I have a lot of fans around the world that don’t feel the way she [sic] do, God bless her, and you can’t satisfy everybody.” When Modarressy-Tehrani pressed him on the issue, Kelly denied that his fans were anything other than positive.
“Everywhere I go from malls to restaurants to sold-out tours overseas and back, everywhere I’ve been I get nothing but love,” the singer said. “My stage is my office ... If I hear from what you say from 20,000 fans, then I will not turn up to any other venues. I will always do R Kelly – I’m not perfect, but I’m perfectly me. I’ll do my job until I get fired, and the only people who can fire me is my fans.”
The interview became increasingly testy as Modarressy-Tehrani declined to change the subject. Kelly accused her of digging for dirt, saying “If you don’t get something juicy, then your television show’s gonna be cut off, so I understand you have to do a job, but I have to do a job too.”
Seeming to suggest that the allegations were part of the distant past, Kelly added: “I didn’t come here for negative. I came here for positivity and I don’t give people who have negativity towards me the time of day. Especially if it was what, I don’t know how many years ago.”
After Kelly then told Modarressy-Tehrani “I’ll talk to you like the beautiful lady you are,” the interviewer asked him if he had an unhealthy attitude to sex. Kelly responded, “I did not come here to get interrogated, I didn’t come here for a deposition ... If you don’t think you’re disrespecting me, that’s the level of your intelligence.”
In an attempt to turn the tables, he then asked the interviewer: “Do you drink? Do you get drunk? Do you fall all over and not know where you’re at?”
A few minutes later, the interview concluded as Kelly walked off with parting words, “Thank you so much, you’re so beautiful.”
“You don’t have to comment on my appearance, sir,” Modarressy-Tehrani replied.