R. Kelly may not have opened up about his troubled past to Huffington Post last month, but he gave GQ the green light to ask all the hard questions for their newest feature story.
Sure to garner a lot of interest, the interview is titled “The Confessions of R. Kelly” and the candid, revealing sit-down, Kellz dives deep into his past; he touched on his controversial relationship with Aaliyah, his sexual abuse allegations, Bill Cosby’s sexual rape allegations, he even dug all the way back to his childhood, when the 49-year-old revealed he endured sexual abuse as a child. That unfortunate fact in itself may have set the precedence for the rest of his life.
“I remember it feeling weird. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember closing my eyes or keeping my hands over my eyes. I remember those things, but couldn’t judge it one way or the other fully,” he said.
In regards to his mysterious relationship with the late Aaliyah, he said his mentorship of the then 14-year-old while he was 27 was based on a deep “friend” connection. “As far as we both loved music and wanted to be successful. She’s a Capricorn, I’m a Capricorn, my momma a Capricorn, her daddy’s a Capricorn, you know. It was just so much in common with each other.” When asked if they ever married, he says out of respect for her family, he can’t answer that. “I will never have that conversation with anyone. Out of respect for Aaliyah, and her mother and father who has asked me not to personally. But I can tell you I loved her, I can tell you she loved me, we was very close.”
About his image tarnished further after the underage sexual assault allegations, he said he’s hurt how people plague him as a monster, even though he’s been acquitted. “When a person is found not guilty, they’re found not guilty. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a murder case, it doesn’t matter what case it is, when they’re found not guilty, they’re not guilty. And I think that a lot of haters out there wanted to see me go down.”
He even spoke on Bill Cosby’s latest rape allegations, seemingly mirroring Kelly’s troubled experience with being persecuted in the court of public opinion. Kelly said he thinks Bill’s story currently playing out to the world is “strange.” Well, my opinion on that is, I don’t know what happened. I’m a fan of Bill Cosby… When I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there’s something strange about it. That’s my opinion. It’s just strange.”
Read the entire interview over at GQ here.
