R. Kelly Has Been Dropped by Sony Music
Published: January 18, 2019
As originally published by Sarah Murphy on
Exclaim!Following reignited protests in the wake of
Lifetime's docu-series Surviving R. Kelly, Sony Music has dropped
R. Kelly from its RCA roster.
According to
Variety, although Kelly has been removed from the label's
online list of artists, his back catalogue will remain with Sony.
Reps from Sony and RCA have not publicly commented on the news, and
Variety reports that there is no formal announcement expected to come from label reps.
The decision to cut Kelly comes after the growing
#MuteRKelly movement online, as well as public demonstrations outside the Sony headquarters in New York and Los Angeles.
Kelly's record of sexual impropriety dates back decades.
He married late R&B singer Aaliyah in 1995, when he was 27 and she was 15, allegedly forging her birth date on the marriage license.
In 2000, an infamous tape depicted Kelly having sex with a minor, but he was
cleared of those child pornography charges in 2008 when the woman in the video refused to testify against him in court.
In 2017, Kelly was accused of
holding women captive in an abusive "cult" in Atlanta.
Surviving R. Kelly was released earlier this month, documenting the experiences of a number of Kelly's alleged victims.
Kelly has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.
