TIFFANY "TIA" HAWKINS: I was the first girl.
And nobody believed me.
And after that, it continued to happen
again and again
and again.
DAMON DASH: Whoever's acting like they didn't know
is lying.
15, 13...
Anything under 18 is disgusting.
EBONY WILKINS: When you're that young...
...you get involved with someone.
[sniffles]
And you think that...
you're "special."
JOVANTE CUNNINGHAM: We're grown girls,
but we're still little girls that cry silently.
♪
[cheering]
LISA VAN ALLEN: I decided to sit on the row
and be brave and watch it with the rest of the survivors.
And the producers and some security personnel
tell us that we have to evacuate immediately.
[siren wailing]
FAITH RODGERS: Somebody had called in
-a gun threat. -LISA: And that's when I knew,
like, something powerful is in this documentary,
and someone's trying to make sure it's not ever seen.
NEWSWOMAN: Surviving R. Kelly
was trending at number one on Twitter.
I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to be playing
R. Kelly songs anymore. I think he's canceled.
When you start messing with somebody's money,
-crazy jumps out. -KELLY RODGERS: Robert Kelly's
people began to expose
women one by one.
FAITH: There was a Facebook page
full of my nude pictures.
ASANTE McGEE: They just waiting to get that news
and say, "Survivor Asante McGee is dead
-from suicide." -JEN EMRICH: I am aware
of Surviving Lies.
And I definitely support that. [laughs]
My parents. I felt like an embarrassment to them.
I think I'm just dealing with a lot right now of after.
NEWSMAN: R. Kelly turned himself in
to Chicago police Friday night.
He is being charged with ten counts
of felony sexual abuse.
MICHAEL AVENATTI: We are in the process
of investigating
the attorneys, the agents and the managers
that enabled this course of conduct.
Man, how complicit we all have been.
W. KAMAU BELL: There's a weird aspect of show business
that the people who make it, once we're through that door,
it's like we have to close ranks.
So often it's like, "Why?
"How did this happen? How could this happen?
"You're telling me that this many people knew this?
"You're telling me that
"he married Aaliyah and, you know,
"that this tape was circulating
in barbershops and on... Like, how? How?"
This doesn't happen without a symphony
of people and industries and organizations
and corporations enabling this behavior.
JIM DeROGATIS: The story here is how did he
get away with this for 30 years?
It should have ended with Tiffany Hawkins.
Victim number one. Patient zero.
The first girl who sued Kelly
for sexual contact that started when she was 15 in 1991.
TIA: I was born and raised in Chicago.
I always knew I wanted to sing.
It was an outlet for me.
You know, I was very shy, but, you know,
when I was singing, I was somebody different.
And I thought that music was my destiny.
I sang in church. That's where I started.
And even in grammar school,
I was in the choir the whole time.
Um, into high school.
I saw myself being a singer
like Whitney Houston.
When I got to high school,
I just went to Ms. McLin.
Ms. McLin was my music instructor.
She said to me, "You remind me of Whitney Houston."
She said, "You even look like her."
And so she took me on
and started to give me singing lessons.
I pretty much was
on the street more than I was at home.
I was staying out late.
Um, I had no
sense of direction.
Me and my friends were-were running the streets.
That's what we did.
We were all running from different challenges.
We all had our own challenges at home.
Either rejection, abuse
or just not really feeling like you fit in.
My mother and I had some tension in our relationship.
[exhales]
She had a boyfriend
that was abusive.
To me and...
[clears throat]
My mother
knew that he was
physically abusive, and so...
I did feel like
she did not protect us
the way that I feel like
I would protect my daughter.
So I was angry with her for that.
And that's where I was at when I met Robert.
I met him in Hyde Park.
A friend of mine and I were on a bus,
and we saw his car, and we saw him.
And we got off the bus
and ran over to his car because we wanted to meet him.
I was a sophomore in high school at the time.
I was an aspiring singer.
I figured, "Oh, my God.
I want to meet R. Kelly. I want him to hear me sing."
R. Kelly is a huge star.
He showed interest in us, you know?
I mean, we're-we're young girls, and here R. Kelly is,
like, standing there talking to us. Him and his friend.
The conversation ended with, "I'm gonna give you my address.
"Why don't you bring some of your friends to my apartment.
We'll see how it goes."
The first time I sang for Robert...
I started singing
a Mariah Carey song,
and I hit a high note,
and Robert fell out of his chair.
And I was like, "So, is that a good thing?"
And his friend Tory said,
"That's a great thing."
For the first several months,
um, my relationship with Robert
was like a brother-sister relationship.
Robert paraded Tiffany around
as his "best friend,
little sister."
And he adored her.
He absolutely adored her.
Robert and I talked about, um, my life at home.
The troubles and pressures of being a young girl
and, you know, growing up in the neighborhood.
And he was a great listener,
and he had a way
to make you feel like you could beat the odds.
He made me feel like I could do anything.
I could be anything.
And he was gonna be the person to help make that happen
for me.
I spent a lot of time with Robert.
Me, Jovante
and another friend of ours were with Robert
pretty much on a daily basis.
He made sure that I had a place to stay
and food to eat and clothes on my back.
So that-that's how that went.
During that period in the, um, early '90s,
you would see multiple girls in the studio.
And I didn't suspect any of the younger girls,
like Tiffany and Jovante,
were being sexually active with Robert.
Now, they were around. They were around late.
This is true.
Sometimes would spend the night at the studio.
I never really looked at Tiffany's age,
um, because she ran with a pack of girls,
and they did what they wanted to do all night.
They would stay out all night.
They would, uh, come early.
They would do what they wanted.
She's a girl who wanted to sing,
and she had incredible talent.
Kelly promised her a career.
That's-that's every young aspiring musician's dream.
And, uh...
it instead was this sick sexual relationship
where he is preying on her at age 15
and having her connect him
to other 15-year-old friends.
Uh, it's-it's...
It sounds like the Manson family.
TIA: Robert did
ask me to bring... friends with me,
and I did bring friends with me.
Um...
They always wound up having sex.
Always. It always ended up that way.
The first time I met
with Robert after getting his phone number,
I gathered some of my friends,
and we went to his apartment.
It was Robert. There were...
I think about three of his friends.
We were all talking, laughing.
You know, everybody had fun.
There was a-a lot of laughs, a lot of joking.
There was a lot of fun.
And...
my friends were all in his bedroom.
So, I would
go in and out of the room,
and every time I went in there,
he was having sex with someone.
It turned into a whole orgy.
Every girl I brought
was between the age of 14 and 16.
For a 25-year-old to be having sex with a 14-year-old,
that was not something that was normal for me.
It's not something that I had seen.
This was a star. So, for me,
I thought maybe this was different.
Maybe this is just how it goes.
As she said to me when we finally spoke,
"He used to call me the cable girl."
And I said, "I-I don't get it."
She says, "I hooked him up.
"I introduced him to six of my other friends who were 15,
"and they all had sex with Kelly
before I ever slept with him."
JOVANTE: When you...
You're thinking, "Go get me some girls."
I mean, we weren't looking for underage women.
In our minds, we were just looking for girls.
He had figured a way in,
and we didn't even know it.
CANDICE NORCOTT: Using girls to recruit other girls
may work to make the predator feel less guilty
because somebody else is helping.
Um, feel less culpable.
A little bit more distance
from the more nefarious aspect of what's happening.
And in subtle ways,
it's also effective
'cause a predator then is saying,
"Let's invite more people to this party.
Aren't we having fun?"
Robert took advantage
of a lot of my friends.
Um, Ebony...
...I felt the worst about.
EBONY: About a month in
after meeting Rob,
there was a day that we were at his, um, house
on 9th and Wabash.
Rob had grabbed me by the hand,
and he brought me out of the room.
He started kissing on my neck
and fondling me.
And we had sex.
I was 14 or 15.
NORCOTT: When we think
about sexual encounters,
when adults, um, are attempting to engage
in sexual, uh, relationships with adolescents,
there's pressure.
Um, there's an adult that's hav...
that has a very strong opinion one way.
Our brains don't stop developing until our mid-20s.
So what that means is adolescents have
an underdeveloped
decision-making capacity.
We were in the same room that we were always sitting in,
and he...
just openly bent a-a girl over
and proceeded to have sex with her.
And with that, me seeing that...
That... It-it hurt my feelings.
But when you're that young...
You get involved with someone...
[sniffles]
And you think that...
you're "special."
To see that it was just so easy to go from me
to another person...
And then in front of me.
I actually didn't even know this impacted me...
like this.
Throughout all the years.
Even when speaking about it recently,
like it was nothing.
It was nothing to me.
But I guess it is. I guess it still is.
[sniffles]
TIA: I felt really, really bad,
and-and to this day, I feel really bad about that.
So... [clears throat]
Pause, please.
Mm-hmm.
I need some water.
Yeah, break.
[clears throat]
e two.
TIA: The first time
I had a sexual encounter with Robert,
it was in a very minor way.
I remember one time I came into the room,
and he asked me to take my shirt off,
and... he fondled my breasts
while he was having sex with somebody else.
I mean, I was never okay with it,
but I felt like,
at least I don't have to have sex with him.
But I always felt like,
you can't be enjoying this
because I'm not,
and it's got to be obvious that I'm not,
so why-why are we doing it?
But he didn't care.
I'm assuming that someone said something about
all the young girls being around
because we went from, "Bring your friends,
bring some of your friends."
Every time, "Bring some of your friends."
We went from that to, "Nobody can come."
He didn't tell me why,
but all of a sudden,
it's-it's just me now.
It's just me.
So there's no one else
to have sex with Robert other than me.
NORCOTT: The first step in the process
of victimization is often locating
and identifying a target, a victim.
And often, what can make it easier is
if you are less connected to family and friends,
if you are more isolated in your life,
with less social supports.
TIA: My sexual relationship
with Robert began
several months after meeting him.
When it was just him and me...
[clears throat]
We went from this...
brother-sister, tight-knit relationship to
more of a sexual relationship,
and... it was weird for me.
ALEXANDER: He would have sex with multiple friends
and have Tiffany watch.
Then he would have Tiffany participate.
Then it was just him and Tiffany.
And she wanted to do whatever she needed to do to be with him.
And so, when he insisted on having sex with her, she did.
And then it became a regular thing,
and she eventually lived with him,
and was told to cut off contact
with other people, which she did.
So, it was an ev... an evolution of, uh, of...
of pedophilia.
DR. JODY ADEWALE: If a 15-year-old is
trading sex for a favor,
whether it be a career, whether it be money,
is not making a strong or wise decision.
They do not understand
where this type of behavior can lead them,
due to something we call the "prefrontal cortex."
It basically does not have the wiring to understand
long-term effects of current impulses
and current behavior.
I had no clue. Robert does what he does in your face,
so you don't even see it.
If you're in the studio,
and you hear the music going, and the door is locked,
here's the thing-- you're accustomed to that.
Because this is how he creates.
You're not thinking that there's something going on
on the other side of the door,
'cause if he wants to do something,
he does it in your face.
So it was very easy
for me or anyone else to not realize
what was going on with her at that time.
It's never something that I wanted to do
because I was not sexually attracted to Robert.
I was not in love with Robert.
I didn't want that kind of relationship with Robert.
It's what I knew I had to do
in order to...
satisfy him
and keep myself around.
JOVANTE: He promised her the world.
And I believe he really tried to produce on some levels.
I really do.
TIA: I honestly cannot think of
a time...
that I was with Robert and we didn't have sex.
It was all the time.
All the time.
I mean, I-I hated it.
I hate... I hated...
I hated it.
But I did it.
Because I felt like I had... it's what I had to do.
DEMETRIUS: Tiffany was a singer.
Her relationship with Robert was-was music, and
we introduced her to Aaliyah.
And she began to sing background on Aaliyah's album.
And-and that made her very happy
because she wanted to be a singer, and she could sing.
DeROGATIS: Aaliyah is key to everything.
My understanding of what happened between Robert
and Aaliyah Dana Haughton begins with Barry Hankerson,
who was the manager
who oversaw Kelly's rise to superstardom.
He had a niece, Aaliyah Dana Haughton,
and Hankerson paired Aaliyah with Kelly.
And Kelly wrote,
recorded, produced
and titled Aaliyah's debut album,
Age Ain't Nothing But A Number.
We became really fast friends.
My best friend, actually, um--
she had a problem with Liyah because
it went from her and I being very close
to Liyah and I beingvery close.
I did sing on her first album, as well as participated
in the "At Your Best" video.
-♪ Let me know...♪ -♪ Let me know, let me know♪
♪ Let me know...♪
TIA: And I got to tour with Aaliyah.
Remember, he met Aaliyah when she was 13 years old.
I don't think anyone ever suspected
early on that they were having a sexual relationship
because why would you suspect a grown man of having sex
with a 13-year-old?
NEWSMAN: Hip-hop star R. Kelly did
indeed marry his protégé,
the 15-year-old singer Aaliyah Haughton.
And Aaliyah produced two pieces of ID
that appeared to show her to be 18.
TIA: When I found out that Robert and Aaliyah got married,
I didn't care.
It didn't bother me
because if someone else was sleeping with him,
that was great, 'causeth.
GEM: A few days after the fact,
Aaliyah's father put a halt to all that.
YEE: Even though, clearly, there were people that knew about it,
it was something that was covered up.
SARA AZARI: Aaliyah was
the first person to have
a signed nondisclosure agreement,
known as an NDA, with Robert Kelly.
An NDA-- what it is,
is most of the time in a civil setting,
if parties agree to a settlement
and they don't want to share it
with the public or other people,
both sides sign a nondisclosure agreement.
So you can't talk about the terms of the settlement.
You can't talk about how much money was paid
by either party.
That nondisclosure agreement
became the most
effective tool in R. Kelly's arsenal
to continue his predatory practices.
DeROGATIS: The Aaliyah story's not mine to tell.
I wish that Aaliyah's family would speak
because I think there are so many
young black girls who've been hurt,
that what it would mean to know
that Aaliyah was hurt that way, too.
DAMON: I mean, you know, Aaliyah and I were
seeing each other when she passed,
and we were very serious.
You know, we had talked about getting married.
You know, she was my best friend.
You know, she taught me how to love
to the extent that I know how to love now.
You know, there's a lot of [bleep] up people out there.
She just said he was a bad man, and she left it at that.
I'm just saying, it was... it was...
It just made her so uncomfortable
that she... and that I couldn't know about it,
because it would've made me too uncomfortable not to try
to rectify that situation.
But I just wouldn't have been able to tolerate,
you know, knowing certain things
and being in the same room with certain people.
You know what I mean? Unless they're begging me not to.
S-So I had to get therapy over that.
If, like, people would have protected Aaliyah,
so many other girls wouldn't have got touched.
You understand what I'm saying?
And whether they know they're in a bad place or not,
the fact that they were able to get touched meant
they were in a bad place.
And they would've been able to get help earlier.
You know, you shouldn't have to always learn from pain.
Sometimes you can learn from other people.
Like, Aaliyah was like the sacrificial lamb for all that,
'cause she didn't deserve none of that.
You know, was a good... a good, good soul, a good girl.
And wasn't even really so, like, resentful.
Like, "Let that man live,
but just keep him the [bleep] away from me."
That's all she wanted.
She was just happy to be away.
And you know, I-I know
the whole story, you know what I'm saying?
I know it was to cover up and all of that.
But how did that cover it up? It just made the conversation
less crazy, "Oh, he married a child"?
So how you still...? How...? That was a headline.
That was, like, a rumor.
That was something talked about like it was normal.
It wasn't like, "Ew, disgusting. You married a 13-year-old."
It was like, "Oh, you married Aaliyah?" She's 13.
-MALE PRODUCER: 15. -Yeah, but the 15 is 13, man.
-Same [bleep] thing. -No. I-I just want to make sure
you're-you're absolutely accurate.
Well, I don't have to be accurate 'cause I don't care.
It's 15, 13. Anything under 18 is disgusting.
You know what I mean? Like, that... She was a child, bro.
I wound up going home after...
It was some months.
I wound up going back home
because I was pregnant.
DEMETRIUS: Yeah, I remember, uh,
when Tiffany called me, and she was in pain, and
I said, "Baby, you don't got to hurt.
You don't got to do this." I said, "If that's Robert's baby,
"then all you got to do is do this and do that.
"And, um, there's people that'll help you with that.
"He'll hurt. Make him hurt, honey.
Don't you hurt over that."
I don't want to see Tiffany hurt herself,
because Tiffany was signed to me as an artist.
She had become pregnant, and she didn't know who the father was.
And she wanted Kelly to take a paternity test.
And so I was thinking, "Well, maybe I should ask him.
All right, I'll ask him."
And I called Robert.
He was getting ready to go on stage.
And he told me,
"You and me both better know
that that's not my baby."
He actually took the time, he put the audience on hold,
he put the show on hold to make sure
that I understood what he needed me to understand--
that we were not going to take a blood test,
and that if I thought
that was his baby,
I better quickly remove that from my mind.
And I said, "Mm, okay."
And...
he said, "Now tell me you love me."
I said, "I love you."
And when I got off the phone, I was like,
thinking to myself,
"How did that conversation wind up like that?
"How did that conversation end up
with me telling him I love him?"
I was angry... with him
because I really didn't understand
why he wouldn't do that for me.
There is a part of me that broke.
Um...
I-I did. I broke.
DeROGATIS: Within weeks
of that "last straw," as she called it,
that conversation,
she was depressed, and she tried to kill herself
by taking a handful of pills.
Her mother was home.
She wound up in the hospital.
It was a really bad period for her, as she tells it.
DEMETRIUS: I said, "Tiffany,
"you don't have to do this to yourself, you don't have
"to hurt yourself. You can go to
see people if Robert did this to you."
I saw a commercial
for Susan Loggans' firm.
Hi. I'm attorney Susan E. Loggans.
If you have a case, we will fight for you.
I felt like I needed to be empowered
because I felt like he had knocked me down.
I wound up
going into the office
and speaking to Ian Alexander.
Tiffany Hawkins was the first person
to bring this to the attention of anybody,
and nobody believed her.
I think a grown man having sex with young girls
repeatedly means that there is a problem.
And I would think to myself,
"How is he still getting away with this?
"Does not the whole world know
that this man is a pedophile?"
My witness list consisted
of Aaliyah, Jovante
and several other women,
people in Robert's camp, definitely enough
for me to be taken seriously.
But I wasn't.
I called and called and called the office
of the state's attorney. Not a word back.
TIA: That was a big blowback.
You know, like, the state has said,
"With all this evidence, whatever.
We don't care."
We knew we had to take action
when the state didn't do anything.
What Kelly was doing was horrendous,
was predatory,
was serial, and needed to be stopped.
And so what we had to do was file
a lawsuit against him and the people that he worked for.
Tiffany Hawkins then files a civil suit.
The major difference between criminal law and civil law
is that criminal laws regulate crimes or wrongs
committed against the government.
Civil laws regulate disputes between private parties.
ALEXANDER: We knew that
our only avenue of redress was a civil lawsuit,
seeking money damages.
We sued R. Kelly.
We sued Jive Records, Zomba,
Blackground. We sued Kelly
for the assault and battery.
We sued all these other places for negligence.
It's an imperfect system,
but it's the best system that's out there,
and it's what we have.
DeROGATIS: Tiffany gave a deposition
that was described to us as hair-raising,
that lasted seven and a half hours.
On the record, she testified that she had sex with R. Kelly
while she was a minor, and that he knew it, and that...
that he had sex with other minors in her presence,
and she testified under oath
that they engaged in group sexual encounters together
with other minors.
Kelly's lawyers
threw me out of their office.
So they knew
they were screwed.
R. Kelly and his lawyers quickly offered her
a $250,000 cash settlement,
contingent upon her signing a nondisclosure agreement.
Bad men, particularly men who are accused of
trafficking, abusing, raping young girls and women,
there's usually some financial aspect
that helps y-you evade justice.
You don't operate like that out in the open, essentially,
for so long without some kind of monetary attachment.
ALEXANDER: I left Susan Loggans' office
because I always want to do my best,
and I really feel like I was denied the opportunity
to do the best for Tiffany Hawkins in this case.
Paying money for silence victimizes women.
Susan, as far as I know,
has brokered settlements for silence
for victims of R. Kelly's abuse.
Do you know what your rights are?
If you're not sure, call us and tell us the facts.
Loggans began what I call a sort of settlement factory.
Girls would come to her
with charges of underage sexual contact with Kelly.
She would send them to a private detective agency
in suburban Hinsdale,
make them take a lie detector test.
A settlement would be struck,
a nondisclosure agreement would be signed,
and the girl promised never to speak about it.
I believe there are more than a dozen of those settlements
that we don't know about,
because there were not court papers.
Loggans has never given me the number.
She has only said, "numerous," with a little bit of a smirk.
TIA: You know, having the money was great.
That did not take the pain away.
It was not the-the end-all, be-all. You know?
It didn't fix everything, like I thought it would.
You know, it didn't fix everything.
There were times, uh, during my lawsuit that I still,
like, I wanted to make it go away.
There was times where, oh, I-I wanted to go back to him.
But, um--
Yeah, there--
There was actually a time I called him.
He got on the phone,
and we talked probably for five minutes,
and he said, "I don't think we should be talking."
We got off the phone and, um...
I haven't talked to him since then.
Oftentimes, survivors of sexual violence
do not want the perpetrator to go to prison.
They want the harm to stop.
They want the, uh, power dynamics to shift.
Oftentimes they want to be loved,
because these are also perpetrators who, uh,
wooed them and-and swept them off their feet.
They consider to be a boyfriend,
they consider to be someone who loves them.
Consider to be somebody who's in their family.
I wanted to run back to the Robert that took care of me.
That-- The Robert that I thought loved me.
You know? The Robert that, uh,
I felt like protected me, you know?
He didn't want me to be on the streets.
And he didn't want me to be out there gangbanging.
I felt like he wanted the best for me,
and he just did not come through.
So while all the sex was going on--
There was more sex
and not enough singing.
Part of her died with that lawsuit.
She gave up her opportunity to become a recording artist.
She gave up her friendship with Robert.
She gave up everything that made her smile.
She gave up her love for the sound of music.
The music don't play the same way to her no more.
Her dream ended with the lawsuit.
The beat stopped.
Tiffany couldn't dance worth a darn.
But Tiffany could sing.
She stopped singing.
She tried. It just--
The passion wasn't there anymore.
We're grown girls,
but we're still little girls that cry silently.
If you weren't there, you'd never understand it.
ORareer,
since he became a hitmaker for labels,
and a moneymaker for a lot of people,
he has been protected by innumerable forces.
There were absolutely enablers.
Without going to real specific with names, but management?
Oh, absolutely. He couldn't--
He couldn't do this by himself.
Everyone knew, or most people in that camp knew
that a lot of these girls were underage.
I remember being called into Jive late one night.
We were brought into a conference room,
and they said, "Hey, guys, we-we have a problem."
REPORTER: As for the video,
it's now the hottest-selling tape and DVD
on the black market.
DeROGATIS: The stuff that's going on in the tape,
it's horrifying.
During the time of the explosive tape,
I remember them playing
15, 20 seconds.
At that point, my bosses said, "We've seen enough."
You know, there are just some things that
I think you can't un-see.
Right now, I can see
those 12 to 15 seconds that I watched.
I can see the record...
the gold record plaques in the background,
I can hear the squeaking of the chair.
I can remember what she was wearing and what she wasn't.
I remember seeing the camera being set up,
and the focus being-being set up.
In a panic, you know, they said to me and another executive,
"You guys need to go to Chicago,
and you guys need to buy up all the tapes you can find."
And we did. We went to Chicago,
and, you know, I-I felt like I was back on the block.
Like, "Yo, what you got, son?" you know, kind of thing.
[chuckles] You know, and--
And just buying up as many tapes as you could.
And I remember one of my bosses telling me that,
"Jimmy, don't get caught up,
because if Rob goes down, people are gonna get fired."
I was like, "Well, why? You know, it's not our fault."
You know, and he said,
"Rob keeps the lights on around here."
And I confronted Rob
about it one day.
He and I sat down, and he said to me,
"Jimmy, you know, it wasn't me."
You know, uh, he said, "It was my brother."
And he said it was his twin brother.
He was so believable
that I, in my head--
I'll never forget this, I said to my friend,
I was like, "Yo, you know what?
"I never actually asked him if he had a twin brother,
so maybe he did have a twin brother."
And then you-you start to go back, and I'm like,
"Okay, Jimmy, you were-you were being manipulated."
Because I have this powerful individual
that I'm revering, and I accepted the fact
that something that he said didn't make sense.
Because... I don't want it to be real.
I don't want this to be happening to you.
CAREY KELLY: I hadn't been around Robert since 1996.
I hadn't been around Robert.
I hadn't been on tour with him,
I hadn't, you know, been to concerts.
I hadn't seen Robert in, in years.
And then my name end up being brought up in the situation.
BRUCE KELLY: Ed Genson got on television and said that
the guy in the video looks like his-his younger brother as well.
It could be possibly be him.
Carey got-- He was furious.
My brother wanted me to do some [bleep], man,
pertaining to this case
that was gonna leave me behind bars.
You know what I'm saying? To lie.
To perjure myself in a court of law.
His attorney said that it was me in the videotape.
-WILLIAMS: What? -CAREY: That was their argument.
He never came forth and said,
"Hey, you know what y'all hearing, it's not true."
This is realreal.
This is, this is not a joke. It's not a game.
This is my life.
And I know my mama turning over in her grave,
because this is not how she meant it to be for us.
BRUCE: I arranged for Robert and Carey to talk.
So we went out to his house in Olympia Fields...
When I got there, it's only him
in this big, long room in his house,
in-in his swimming pool.
You just want me to just get in the swimming pool with you?
Robert asked me to get in the pool
because he thought that I was wearing a wire.
And that's why I came out and said it to him.
I said, "Man, if you want to ask me that am I wearing a wire,
just say it; be a man."
He was asking me, "Man, you need to say that was you."
Commit a crime, pretty much,
to say that was me on the tape with a minor.
Perjure myself in a court of law, um, you know,
and-and risk jail time for some stuff that I ain't...
that didn't have anything to do with me.
"You need to say this and that and the other.
"I'll buy you a car, I'll buy you--
I'll get you a record deal, and-and $50,000."
I said, "Man, let me tell you something, man."
I said, "You ain't got enough money for me to say that's me.
'Cause it ain't worth me selling my soul."
MAN: Mr. Kelly has been indicted.
There's been a warrant issued for his arrest,
and the Chicago police department is currently
seeking to arrest Mr. Kelly.
DeROGATIS: Florida sheriff's officers arrive
to serve the Illinois warrant and arrest Kelly.
When they arrested him,
they searched the party house
and found-- in a gym bag,
behind a door marked "Private - Do Not Enter"--
an early digital camera.
And they confiscated that camera,
and on that camera were pictures of Kelly
with an underage girl and a legal-age woman.
He was further indicted in Florida
for additional counts
of child pornography.
He had an incredible stroke of good fortune.
The judge in that case
decided, six months or so down the road,
that the sheriff's officers had done
an illegal search and seizure.
Even though they were coming to arrest a man
on charges of making child pornography,
and they found more child pornography,
the judge kicked that case out.
rity,
and because he had money,
he could get the best lawyers.
And lawyers know how
to slow down the system.
And this case, they made the wheels of justice turn slowly.
In February 2002, we were fairly certain
when the trial was set to begin, he's nailed, he's done.
Usually, it's months between indictment and trial,
especially in-in sex crimes.
Kelly had four top attorneys
who charged him $850 an hour--
untold billable hours-- for six years.
There was a lot of money being made,
and they successfully dragged their feet.
Every day they delay taking this case to court,
the girl who was 14 on video gets older
and looks less like a teenager, if she ever testified.
Most victims of sexual violence
do not find justice through the legal system.
And he was a person of great significance,
and he was accused of hurting a group of people
that has been less protected and valued, perhaps,
than-than nearly any other group of people in this country.
DeROGATIS: There were four public lawsuits
by the time he went to trial.
Tiffany Hawkins was a wake-up call.
REPORTER: According to a civil suit, Kelly began having sex
with a 15-year-old student.
You're sued, you settle, it goes away.
Aaliyah is a wake-up call.
Hip-hop star R. Kelly did indeed marry his protégé,
the 15-year-old singer Aaliyah Haughton.
DR. JOAN MORGAN: By the time he got around to marrying Aaliyah,
who was 15 at the time,
it was like, there is something wrong with him
that y'all are not seeing.
DeROGATIS: Tracy Sampson--
her sexual contact
begins with Kelly when she is 17.
Patrice Jones-- at age 17,
she became pregnant
and Kelly forced her to have an abortion.
A fourth public lawsuit-- Montina Woods
had sex with Kelly.
It was videotaped without her knowledge.
None of the civil lawsuits--
Sampson, Hawkins, Jones, Woods--
were ever mentioned in court.
Gaughan had methodically narrowed the prosecution case
to one girl on one videotape.
LINDSEY PERRYMAN-DUNN: When I began working
at R. Kelly's home in Olympia Fields,
there was this young girl playing in the backyard.
Her family had a very close relationship with Robert.
Uh, she would have been 14 or 15,
because the timing of it,
why I know, is that Robert bought her
her first car when she was 16.
There were times that this young girl slept over
in the studio.
But that wasn't alone.
It was with a family member.
And that's because her dad was there
to play guitar at night on the songs.
I never felt a need to report anything suspicious.
I never saw anything that looked weird or odd.
I never saw anything that made me uncomfortable.
And I never felt the need to call 911.
♪
My name is Dylan Ely.
I was R. Kelly's engineer at a studio,
Chicago Trax, and also at his house.
When the sex tape came out,
you know, like, you hear someone knocking on the door,
and-and that's very typical.
Like, I actually, like, know the guy that--
You could recognize his voice, like, that was knocking
on the door. And, like, you would knock on the door,
and he would-- they would have a message for Rob.
And so that's, like, happening while the,
like, tape is
kind of happening, too.
Really, nothing changed,
as far as how we were working. I mean,
it was like-- it came out, but, of course,
we didn't say anything about it, of course.
You know, it was like business as usual.
And the time leading up to the trial,
I think we actually worked probably a little bit more.
I mean, I would assume he was, you know,
maybe working to kind of keep his mind
off of, you know, the proceedings and,
you know, all that kind of stuff.
There was this one day.
We were in the control room at Trax,
uh, watching Chappelle's Show.
You know, Rob was in there.
We would, you know, watch the show pretty religiously.
And the Chappelle's Show-- the famous skit came on,
where he's spoofing, you know, the R. Kelly sex tape.
-♪ I want to pee on you♪ -[laughter]
♪ Yes, I do♪
♪ Yes, I do, I'll pee on you.♪
DYLAN: Rob was just...
He didn't say, "Turn it off." He just, like--
He watched the thing, and it was, like,
awkward silence for... a while.
I mean...
it felt like forever.
Um...
You know, everyone's like,
"Oh, [bleep]."
You know?
It was, uh...
It was pretty intense and pretty crazy.
Rob is probably
the weirdest/most intense/ most demanding
artist I've ever worked for.
Leading up to the trial, there were two women
that lived pretty much full-time in the garage.
They were there
as long as I was working at Olympia Fields.
I think it was kind of an unwritten rule
that they weren't supposed to talk to us
and we weren't supposed to talk to them.
I know very specifically that the one that I would think
was the youngest one,
I know specifically that she was 21,
'cause we had to buy a 21-year-old birthday cake
one time and-and deliver it.
I'm pretty sure that the-the birthday cake,
the 21st birthday cake, that we delivered to the, um...
the garage was for the girl from the tape.
DeROGATIS: During the trial,
the girl on the tape
continued to be part of Kelly's circle,
to come around, to stay with Kelly.
When I found out that the girl from the tape
was living in the garage, it was kind of like,
"Wow, that's... some balls, for sure."
Um, so, yeah, it was-- it was a little bit crazy.
LINDSEY: When I was forced
to testify against R. Kelly,
they asked me at the time, "Was the girl in the tape
[bleep]?"
And after what I saw and was forced in the room
to see,
I said, "Yes. That's her."
"Is that R. Kelly in the video?"
"I think so. Yes, I-I think so."
"Well, how-- Can you be sure?"
Well, like, 20 years old,
you're scared to death.
But what I can speculate on at this point in time in my life
is that, watching that video,
I did watch two consensual people having sex.
I did not watch a rape.
MORGAN: Sex with minors
and the issue of consent, we have a legal system
that says that they are not allowed to consent.
So, if they're not consenting
by virtue-- even virtue of age,
it's a rape.
What we're talking about here is
adults who are trying to...
create an argument to have sex with children.
There is no need for it.
The very foundation for that argument is moot.
There were 14 witnesses who testified to some knowledge
of the girl on the tape, starting at age 13.
At age 14, she is, when the videotape is made,
according to the state of Illinois,
being raped by R. Kelly.
But the jury never saw the victim.
The jury never heard from the victim's mother and father.
AVENATTI: The victim depicted in the videotape and her family
received over $2 million in financial benefits
for obstructing justice and assisting R. Kelly
in beating those charges.
DeROGATIS: You're tried with almost half an hour of crystal clear video
of you sexually violating a 14-year-old girl,
and you're acquitted.
You think that this man would've stopped.
But there always was talk of other tapes.
♪
moring]
ANGELA YEE: After R. Kelly's trial
in 2008, he was back to the races.
Making hit albums,
appearances, endorsements.
People really believed that he didn't do anything wrong.
LEMIEUX: At the 2010 Soul Train Awards,
he was allowed to perform
a tribute to Sam Cooke.
He sort of made a decision to go deeper into his Pied Piper,
dirty uncle type of persona.
He appears two subsequent weekends
at Coachella.
He headlines Bonnaroo, and he headlines
the Pitchfork Music Festival,
being embraced by the white hipsters.
People looked at it like, "Well, he wasn't charged.
He didn't go to jail for that. He was innocent."
DeROGATIS: All of this because the trial in 2008 was reduced
to one girl
on one videotape.
You would think, after the first time that he went to trial,
something might have clicked
for R. Kelly.
But he was still making videos.
BRUCE: Robert was always videoing stuff.
He was always videoing stuff, so...
I know he would make tapes
of himself with women and so forth.
I don't-- I don't think so.
I think, i-if he did, I think they-they knew.
I-I mean, because...
[stammers] Yeah, they-they knew they were getting taped.
Yeah.
He would never ask me if,
um, it was okay to be filmed.
You don't know that he's filming you.
He's never asked permission to film.
He did.
He recorded me one time
having-having, uh, sex with, uh, two women.
I didn't know that the-- it was being videoed, though.
He set me up.
I knew the next day, 'cause he showed it to me.
Yeah.
I think he did it as a joke.
He said, "Y'all know I'm doing a movie.
It's called Dumb Looks."
And, uh, he put the video on, and...
I'm...
"Man, you was videotaping me?"
And I'm-- So many dumb looks on my face.
You know, I guess that's why he called it Dumb Looks.
Carey happened
to, uh, come across a videotape.
At one point, uh, we were in Miami for about three months.
He was doing his-- one of his albums there.
I think it was, like, '95.
Robert had bought the movie Stephen King's
Sometimes They Come Back... Again--
horror movie-- on VHS.
And so we like, "Rob, man,
can-can your brothers watch that movie with you, man?"
He said, "Man, y'all got to buy y'all own."
And I took the tape back to Chicago.
I'm not knowing that what's on this tape
is not Stephen King no more.
And I put the tape in,
and what's on this tape is these little girls
that he done filmed over.
He asked
these girls on this tape, you know, "How old are you?"
It's like he was interviewing them.
And they was like... [high-pitched]: "13."
And these was white girls
that was 13.
The system-- it's a different ballgame
than a black girl that's 13.
He'd have been gone.
And I know
that I shouldn't have did-- But this-- At this--
at this time, this is my brother.
At this time, it's like, "Man, like, dude,
"dude, you-you finna throw your whole life away.
What is wrong with you?"
Robert ended up coming to Chicago, and...
I gave it to him.
And-and he burnt it up.
The things that he was able to get away with in the '90s,
early 2000s, he wouldn't be able to get away with today.
But we still want to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
I think what's just is
each and every woman, now, whose lives have been ruined
by dealing with R. Kelly, being manipulated by R. Kelly,
being abused by R. Kelly,
what justice looks like is whatever
they need to feel whole again.
There are people in the music industry--
I have talked to people who worked with him in the industry
who said, "I know that he did this,
"and I took precautions to not have--
to keep my people safe."
For me, a lot of this is about the fact that, like,
America's laws have been set up to protect men
around situations of sexual assault and rape.
I'm sure all that woman is thinking about
is how hard it is to get justice.
LEMIEUX: All these people who failed these girls, you know,
because this person was powerful,
because it was in their best interest.
It-it... [sighs]
Every time I think about it, I just get so angry.
You know? I-I get very, very angry,
because they didn't deserve that.
CUNNINGHAM: I do not think it is an accident
that all of his victims are young women of color
and that almost all of them are black.
I do not think that it is a coincidence
that almost all of them are from urban areas
where opportunity is a challenge.
Uh, I do not think that it is an accident
that so many of R. Kelly's survivors
are people who are looking for a void to be filled.
The truth of the matter is
R. Kelly continued to choose a specific victim.
My name is Lanita Carter, and I was
the hair braider for R. Kelly.
I was 24 years old when I met him.
I met him through a friend of his.
My goal in braiding his hair
was to be doing hair for a celebrity
to build my clientele up.
Um, I was well-known
in different neighborhoods for braiding hair.
And, um, it made me feel good to be doing it for a celebrity.
I gained the respect of many people for doing his hair.
My family--
they let me finish sentences... [chuckles]
when, normally, they didn't really care what I had to say.
But it was more like, "Lanita,
"who's doing hair for a celebrity,
she succeeded."
Everybody was proud of me.
It definitely felt... wonderful.
It made me more proud when I thought about it.
You know, like, everybody wanted
to be doing something for this guy,
and I'm doing his hair.
It didn't matter how much I got paid.
I just wanted to be, you know, a part of that.
R. Kelly was so warm
and welcoming and inviting.
He told me he was my big brother.
And I didn't take that lightly.
I-I was proud of that.
♪
[sniffles]
And then...
[crying softly]
It was like he crushed...
my life.
KIMBERLY FOXX: I'm here to encourage victims
related to these allegations
to please get in touch with our office.
LANITA: I was told not to speak about it ever.
He's always felt like he was above everything.
I just broke down crying.
I think, this time around, folks want to get it right.
ODELEYE: His victims deserve it.
The ones who've come forward and the many who have not.
LANITA: I want him to acknowledge that he wronged me.
Make me feel like I'm not going crazy.
He [bleep] my daughter up.
Emotionally.
She was, like,
98 [bleep] pounds.
PRODUCER: Dominique, are you ready?
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