| |
Celeb News: WBEZ: The Aaliyah movie is lying about R. Kelly sexual abuse
Member Since: 9/6/2012
Posts: 2,507
|
WBEZ: The Aaliyah movie is lying about R. Kelly sexual abuse
WBEZ has published a scathing piece on R. Kelly's abuse of Aaliyah and how Lifetime's Aaliyah movie insults her legacy by whitewashing what R. Kelly did to her:
Quote:
...
Most importantly, the many fans for whom she was and is a role model for self-empowerment deserve better than the sanitized, soft-pedaled version of her disturbing sexual relationship with Chicago producer R. Kelly when she was 14 and he was 27—a coupling that court documents annulling their brief and illegal marriage and interviews with people close to the ingénue portray as one of abuse and victimization, far from the “puppy love” seen in Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B.
...
Williams spent a lot of time jawing about the Aaliyah/Kelly controversy in her days on talk radio, and she has said she pushed for the “true” story to be told in the film: “The Aaliyah movie was already being produced and… they were doing things wrong. I was like, ‘Look, if you’re going to make this Aaliyah movie, you gotta get it right, Lifetime. I love you, you’re good at wives who stab their husbands movies, but you gotta get this Aaliyah movie right.’ I was very popular on the radio for Aaliyah’s rise and untimely death. I want to hear about R. Kelly… Don’t skate over it. This needs to be a big plot line.”
The film doesn’t “skate over” relations between the “street but sweet” young singer and the self-proclaimed “Pied Pier of R&B”; it spends half its length taking Aaliyah from Catholic grammar school girl, to ambitious student at Detroit’s High School for the Fine and Performing Arts, to stardom and platinum success following her 1994 Kelly-produced debut.
...
This version of events with Kelly at the center of the film is deeply offensive not only as a hoary “frustrated lovers”/Romeo and Juliet cliché, but as a flagrant whitewashing of criminal sexual abuse. As Abdon M. Pallasch and I laid out in a series of unchallenged investigative reports for The Chicago Sun-Times spanning several years, and as I recounted in a much-cited timeline of Kelly’s crimes for WBEZ.org in July 2013, these are the facts:
- When Kelly first met Aaliyah, she was 12, and he already was widely rumored in the music industry to “like them young,” abusing his position of wealth and fame to pursue illegal sexual relationships with underage girls.
- According to a civil lawsuit filed in 1996, which he eventually settled with a cash payment, Kelly had already had at least two sexual relationships with underage girls, one 15 and the other 16, in the years before he met Aaliyah. One of those girls slit her wrists when Kelly ended the relationship and began sleeping with the then-14-year-old Aaliyah, as well as writing and producing her debut album, which he titled Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.
- Shortly after the album’s completion, on Aug. 31, 1994, Kelly married the now-15-year-old Aaliyah at the Sheraton Gateway Suites in suburban Rosemont, having procured a falsified Cook County marriage certificate listing her age as 18. Some sources have said Aaliyah was pregnant. The singer’s family, including a furious Hankerson, separated the couple as soon as they stepped off a plane in Florida for their honeymoon, and Kelly and Aaliyah never spoke again. (Aaliyah did not have a child.)
- In October 1994, the marriage was annulled in Detroit and lawyers for both sides reached a settlement that was sealed in Wayne County Circuit Court, though a copy was obtained by the Sun-Times. The court documents provided a nominal payment of $100 from Kelly to Aaliyah, with Aaliyah promising not to pursue further legal action because of “emotional distress caused by any aspect of her business or personal relationship with Robert” or “physical injury or emotional pain and suffering arising from any assault or battery perpetrated by Robert against her person.”
That language alone indicates that the relationship was far from innocent, but years later, Aaliyah’s mother told the Sun-Times: “Everything that went wrong in her life began then [with the relationship with Kelly].” And while Hankerson did not split with Kelly until more than five years after the marriage, and he’s never spoken about what happened between his niece and Kelly on the record, his attorney did share with the Sun-Times a letter that he sent to Kelly’s attorney. In it, Hankerson stated that he believed Kelly needed psychiatric help for a compulsion to pursue underage girls, and that Hankerson was in denial about that even after Kelly seduced Aaliyah because he didn’t want to believe the worst and Kelly was a master manipulator.
None of the facts above appear in Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, nor is there any hint that Kelly became the subject of dozens of legal claims from underage girls just like Aaliyah charging that they had been hurt by illegal sexual relationships with him. Also missing: The fact that Kelly was tried and acquitted in 2008 on charges of making child ****ography in a notorious video that allegedly depicts him having sex with and urinating on a girl who was 14 or 15 at the time
To be certain, many of the specifics of the Kelly/Aaliyah relationship remain a mystery, and neither side is eager to address them. But the facts that have been well-reported make the story even more dramatic: Aaliyah had the strength and the support system to recover from her relationship with Kelly and record two more brilliant albums (One in a Million in 1996 and the self-titled Aaliyah in 2001), as well as making significant inroads as a leading woman on screen even in the face of Hollywood’s aversion to African-American leads.
More significantly, with the false and phony version of the relationship presented in Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, Lifetime, Williams, and everyone involved with the film missed the opportunity to provide a stark example and a cautionary tale of how even smart, strong, and self-assured young girls can be victimized by older sexual predators, especially if those men are rich and famous.
In this way, the cycle of sexual predation is perpetuated, and it’s hard to imagine a greater insult to Aaliyah’s legacy than that.
|
Aaliyah deserves so much better.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 18,271
|
It was a bad idea to make this movie to begin with.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 41,181
|
The movie sounds horrible. Aaliyah deserved MUCH better. Eternal queen of urban pop 
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 5/6/2010
Posts: 35,158
|
That language alone indicates that the relationship was far from innocent, but years later, Aaliyah’s mother told the Sun-Times: “Everything that went wrong in her life began then [with the relationship with Kelly].
Um, WHEN did Aaliyah's mother say this? 
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 3,823
|
Quote:
Originally posted by Truth Teller
The movie sounds horrible. Aaliyah deserved MUCH better. Eternal queen of urban pop |
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 21,331
|
|
|
|
|
Banned
Member Since: 10/28/2011
Posts: 21,283
|
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 28,137
|
no lies told.
kelly is nasty as hell, the stories i hear about him 
i live near the HS he attended and where he would often pick up girls. he's trash 
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 3/20/2011
Posts: 26,615
|
He only paid her 100 dollars?
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 3/21/2012
Posts: 55,134
|
Quote:
Originally posted by Attitude
He only paid her 100 dollars? |
A TLC tea
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/13/2010
Posts: 345
|
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 9/1/2013
Posts: 27,364
|
Quote:
Originally posted by A Little Unruly
It was a bad idea to make this movie to begin with.
|
.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 8/11/2012
Posts: 5,375
|
A huge mess, queen deserves so much more.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 11/11/2010
Posts: 28,420
|
Disgusting.
We failed Aaliyah and the other girls he abused by idolizing him and allowing him to be successful (to this day). It's so sad that sexual abuse in Hollywood becomes the butt of jokes, and no legal action is ever taken against abusers.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 9/6/2012
Posts: 2,507
|
Quote:
Originally posted by ManDown
Disgusting.
We failed Aaliyah and the other girls he abused by idolizing him and allowing him to be successful (to this day). It's so sad that sexual abuse in Hollywood becomes the butt of jokes, and no legal action is ever taken against abusers.
|
I couldn't agree more. We did fail Aaliyah. I cannot believe any artist still works with R. Kelly. (Not to mention a certain artist who filmed a music video in which R. Kelly seemingly sexually abused her...)
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 4/7/2009
Posts: 34,961
|
They were so cute together.
|
|
|
|
ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 3,520
|
Wow, I didn't know about all this. R. Kelly is vile and doesn't deserve the success he has. I feel bad for bopping to his music now.
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 11/11/2010
Posts: 11,240
|
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 2,054
|
This is so sad, I really wish that movie was never made
|
|
|
|
Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 10,195
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
