Just offering a buffer on the R. Kelly drama for folks with terrible memories like myself.
Singer Sparkle, R. Kelly's former protege and backup singer identifies Kelly and the girl in the homemade sex tape as her niece who was underage at time yesterday in Chicago at the singer's trial.
R. Kelly's defense lawyer and Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, began shouting over one another during her cross-examination during the trial yesterday.
Before testifying, Edwards watched the videotape; during testimony she said she was sure her relative appeared on it having sex with Kelly.
"You know your blood ... you just know your family," she said.
Edwards, who was a background singer on one of Kelly's albums, testified that her relative was fond of Kelly and "took to him as a father figure."
Cross-examination of Edwards got heated, with the defense grilling her about a falling out she had with Kelly around 2000, two years after Kelly produced her debut album.
Defense attorney Ed Genson suggested Edwards — whose stage name is "Sparkle" — may have hatched a plot aimed at "getting Robert," referring to Kelly's given name.
Edwards replied with a raised voice: "Sweetie, I'm not trying to get money out of this."
"I'm not your sweetie!" Genson shouted into a courtroom microphone, the room booming. [Source]
Apparently, the alleged victim in the R. Kelly sex tape, the now 23 year-old Reshonda Landfair was in a singing group back in the mid-90's. (Only play if you want your ears assaulted.) [Via LSA]
I didn't know and I forgot half of this via the NY Post. It's long, but daaaaamn R. Kelly, you nasty bastid!
NY POST...Page Six
SHAMED singer R. Kelly has a long and sordid history of preying on underage
girls, according to a story in GQ magazine.
Among the more disturbing allegations made by writer Jim DeRogatis:
* The 14-year-old girl who had kinky sex with Kelly four years ago in a widely bootlegged amateur porn tape is his "goddaughter" Reshonda Landfair, the daughter of Kelly’s guitarist.
* When Kelly was romancing his 15-year-old protégé Aaliyah in 1994, he took her to a suburban Chicago hotel room for a quickie marriage ceremony. Kelly used a phony marriage certificate that listed her age as 18 and the two were legally hitched. The union was later annulled, and Aaliyah was sworn to secrecy and waived all civil claims against Kelly.
* Childhood friends of Kelly tell GQ that he was sexually molested by a "trusted older man from the neighborhood," which may have contributed to his abusive behavior as an adult.
While Kelly’s appetite for young girls was an open secret, if a thief hadn’t stolen a videotape from his gym bag four years ago in Chicago, he might never have been arrested, because none of the underage girls he allegedly had sex with was willing to testify against him.
"The girls Kelly had seduced were more willing to settle than to testify," DeRogatis writes.
The "well-lit and crystal clear" stolen tape shows Landfair performing oral sex on Kelly. She also has intercourse with him and calls him "Daddy." (On Kelly’s next album, "Loveland," one funky dance track is titled "Come to Daddy.")
The Landfair family refused to cooperate with police, and then took a 2
1/2-month European vacation early this year, which led to speculation they’d been paid off.
Landfair’s aunt Stephanie Edwards - who recorded under the name Sparkle on a duet with Kelly called "Be Careful" - told GQ:
"There have been too many girls to count. His whole M.O. - he stated this to me not long ago - is he likes them when they are ripe and young because he can mold them into what he wants them to be and control their minds and make them do what women ‘should’ do. He needs to get some help. He needs to be
stopped."
GQ reports Kelly settled lawsuits from two other teenage girls, and that two other cases are pending. Kelly faces 21 counts of child pornography, but authorities have been unable to indict him on the more serious charge of statutory rape without the cooperation of his victims.
R. Kelly Juror Quits Over Money Issues
A rape victim assigned to the jury in R. Kelly's child pornography trial has quit after just one day of work after learning her boss wouldn't pay her for the time she spent in court. Juror 68 asked to be excused shortly after opening statements were made in the case in Chicago, Illinois.
She told the court and her fellow jurors that judging Kelly would leave her homeless - because a loss of earnings would cause her to fall short on mortgage payments.
The unnamed woman, who told Judge Vincent Gaughan she would be able to put her own sexual experience behind her and offer fair judgment in the Kelly trial last week, has been replaced. [StarPulse]
Fishy.
