R. Kelly has been sent back to jail for failing to pay more than $160,000 in child support to his ex-wife.
Cook County police took the R&B singer into custody following a hearing Wednesday about the child support payments. About a week earlier, Kelly was released from jail, where he was being held on charges of sex abuse involving four victims, three of them underage. In that instance, a fan paid the $100,000 bond for his release. Despite his immense success, Kelly’s lawyer has said that his finances are “a mess.”
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Kelly, 52, will remain in jail until he pays the child support, a police spokeswoman told NPR. His next court date on the child support is scheduled for March 13.
On Wednesday morning, CBS released the first part of a series of interviews with Kelly — his first since being charged with the 10 counts of criminal sex abuse last month in Chicago. During the sit-down with host Gayle King, he screamed, cried, and jumped up from his seat. His publicist eventually had to come in and calm him down, but he remained very emotional.
“I didn’t do this stuff. This is not me. I’m fighting for my fucking life. Ya’ll killin’ me with this shit,” Kelly, who’s denied the allegations against him, said in the CBS interview.
For decades, Kelly has faced allegations regarding his sexual interactions with underage girls. Most infamously, he allegedly urinated on an underage girl on camera. He was ultimately indicted on child pornography charges but later acquitted in 2008. Each charge Kelly’s currently facing comes with a possible prison sentence of three to seven years.
On top of that, a new allegation against Kelly surfaced Thursday: An unnamed woman told Detroit police that Kelly sexually assaulted her when she was 13, according to local news reports. She claimed that the relationship continued for years and that she contracted herpes at 17 from him.
Two other women, unrelated to the current charges, have also accused Kelly of having inappropriate interactions with them when they were teenagers in the 1990s.
Cover image: In this Wednesday, March 6, 2019 booking photo released by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office is R. Kelly. (Cook County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
