Photo Credit: R Kelly/Instagram
For the majority of this year, the biggest news out of Chicago has been Jussie Smollett’s hate crime and now that that case is over and he’s left the city, that’s all the more opportunity to focus on R Kelly. You might remember the two of them were booked in the same jail within days of each other. Well he’s been out for a little while on a $1 million bail, paid by a generous friend because Kelly’s been good as broke in recent years. He moved out of his Chicago studio and a number of homes as of late as well.
But then things have turned up a notch ironically after Smollett’s been out of the picture. First, he had a default judgment made against him on April 23rd by a Cook County Judge for not responding to a summons in a sex abuse lawsuit apparently because he isn’t able to read. We already knew that and it hasn’t stopped him before, so whatever. But now things are heating up for the R&B crooner because the FBI in Illinois is investigating him for sex trafficking, tax evasion and obstruction of justice. And the obstruction of justice is based on reports of him paying off witnesses over the years. Prosecutors have been questioning people around him whether he paid people off in the 2008 trial of his. His attorney Steven Greenberg isn’t phased by the suit and appears to be confident about the outcome saying, “The purpose of this, as with all investigations, is to see if there was or was not wrongdoing. It certainly does not mean there was.”
And if you think having the FBI on his tail is something, he has the state of New York after him as well with two probes going on there as well. And while guilty is guilty, the reason he might wish Jussie Smollett was still being bashed in the media is because the more attention he gets, the less ability he has to make money. His label was fronting his bills including his rent prior to being dropped and he needs to work just to survive. That’s impossible if he has daily and weekly bad news reports out about him. He hasn’t made much press since the performance he gave in a Springfield, Illinois nightclub last month where he performed for less than one minute and was still able to walk away with his appearance fee.. and the performance he apparently lied about having in Dubai when asking a judge for permission to travel there. Updates will be given as they come.
