R. Kelly‘s problems keep piling up, but his latest worry was self-inflicted. The disgraced singer failed to show up to court last week, losing a sexual abuse case by default. However, one of his lawyers claimed Kelly has a valid reason for why the singer was a no-show — he can’t read.
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According to TMZ, Kelly’s attorneys, Zaid Abdallah and Raed Shalabi, claim that although he was served with papers alerting him to the case, the singer didn’t know what the case was about because “he suffers from a learning disability that adversely affects his ability to read,” which meant, they added, “in essence he cannot.”
The victims automatically on won the lawsuit because of Kelly’s absence and now, his lawyers were asking for that ruling to be dismissed so he can properly defend himself. That request seemed bizarre considering Kelly’s publicist Darrell Johnson said in a statement to the Chicago Sun Times, “We don’t care about the lawsuit. The lawsuit means nothing to us.”
The plaintiff has remained unidentified but the lawsuit claims, “Kelly drove up to talk to the girl as she walked outside in May 1998 and that later that day one of his associates met her at a restaurant, told her that Kelly wanted to speak with her and invited her to his studio.” Allegedly, the two had sexual contact while she was underage. The victim is now 36.
She was seeking more than $50,000 in damages. There is no word how or when she will receive money.
Kelly was arrested Feb. 23 after surrendering to Chicago police following his indictment on the same day for 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. After spending the weekend in jail because he arguably had trouble paying the $100,000 for bail, a friend of his posted his bond.
Kelly was taken into custody again for failing to pay more than $160,000 in child support but was released a few days later after someone else paid his bond.
The latest sex crime charges he is facing stem from attorney Michael Avenatti, who is now in his own legal scandal, giving purported child porn videos that featured the singer. Avenatti said he was hired April of 2017 in connection to multiple allegations of Kelly sexually assaulting minors. He claimed to have videotaped evidence, which, despite their similarities, were apparently not the same video footage that got Kelly indicted in 2002 — and acquitted in 2008 — for child porn.
Interest in seeing Kelly charged for his alleged crimes came at the beginning of the year when the bombshell docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” aired with several women accusing him of sexually abusing them when they were underage.
Side note, can Kelly write but not read because he is credited for writing tons of songs, including 1996’s “I Believe I Can Fly”? We’ll never know…
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