MIAMI—After the singer was charged this week with two new counts of engaging in prostitution with a minor, local music fan Daniel Allen admitted Wednesday it has been hard squaring his image of R. Kelly as a beloved abuser from the 1990s with the reality of him being a reviled abuser in the 2010s.
“In my head, he’s still the R. Kelly I grew up with, the guy who wrote ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ and had already been sued for impregnating an underage girl,” said Allen, who confirmed he longed for those simpler times, years ago, when all you knew about the R&B artist was that he made great records and had demonstrated a well-documented pattern of predatory sexual behavior with children.
“I have all these great memories of seeing him on TV back then, when he was accepting Grammys, appearing in groundbreaking music videos, and going on trial in Chicago for making child pornography. Now it feels like those memories have been tarnished.”
Allen added that while he is horrified by Kelly’s crimes, there are a few songs from back in the day when everybody knew what the singer was getting up to that he still loves. R. Kelly’s Plea Deal To Federal Charges.
