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Finally Publicly Confronted With Rape Allegations, R. Kelly Walks Out Of Interview

Musical artist R. Kelly performs the national anthem before an NBA basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Atlanta Hawks Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Musical artist R. Kelly performs the national anthem before an NBA basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Atlanta Hawks Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2015, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS

R&B; singer R. Kelly walked out of a HuffPost Live interview today after the interviewer asked questions about his history of alleged sex crimes and whether increasing public knowledge of those allegations is cutting into sales of his latest album, The Buffet. The album is at #16 on the Billboard Top 200, where many of his projects have hit #1, and he released an unusual video message last week asking fans to buy the album to support his work.

After some questions about the album’s reception generally, Interviewer Caroline Modaressy-Tehrani began to ask about the many lawsuits and reports alleging that Kelly has frequently sought out young girls for sex and carried on multiple sexual relationships with minors. “When you think about R. Kelly, I think people find it very difficult to not think about the multiple lawsuits, the multiple allegations of you having inappropriate relations, sex relations, with minors. What do you say to those people who find it conflicting?”

Kelly responded that he hadn’t heard anything on the subject anywhere else, though “you hear a few rumors here and there, but as far as from me to you, I’d say ‘fuck that.’” He went on to explain that because his fans are excited to see him perform they can’t possibly be concerned about the claims of sexual abuse leveled against him. He dismissed any further talk of his alleged sex crimes as “negativity.” “If you start getting negativity thrown at you, you don’t want to hear that kind of crap, especially if it was what? I don’t know how many years ago,” he said as the interviewer tried to get a question in.

HuffPost Live PlayerBreaking News and Opinions.embed.live.huffingtonpost.comOnce Kelly had responded to Modaressy-Tehrani’s first question on the issue, he did not let her finish another. She attempted to follow up by reading tweets from fans who enjoy Kelly’s music but can’t square that with the horrific crimes he is accused of, but he talked over all of her remaining questions, eventually saying he would get up and go home if the “negativity” didn’t stop. He accused her of turning the interview into a “deposition,” and said that if she didn’t find this line of questioning disrespectful, it’s a sign of her intelligence.

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“I’m going to walk out,” he said eventually, “and I’m going to go to McDonald’s. Hopefully the McRib is out, and i’m going to go home to Chicago.” That sentence contained a likely-unintentional reminder of the fact that one prominent story about Kelly’s abuse involves him hanging out at a Chicago McDonald’s picking up high school girls.

“If they hate me, love me, they want to destroy me, I love them all,” he said of his fans, “and I love you too,” he told Modaressy-Tehrani. “You don’t need to give me any of your love sir,” she responded. “I just wanted to ask the question.”