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Several celebrities are speaking out against R. Kelly now that Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly put his history of alleged abuse against women and girls on Front Street. Common is the latest Chicago-based artist to condemn R. Kelly and he even copped to taking way too long to take a stand.
“If it wasn’t just Black women who R. Kelly had been molesting and abusing, he would have been attacked by the system in a different way,” Common told TMZ on Tuesday.
“I’m not one to judge him but I’m not condoning that ever,” he continued. “We failed as a community because we knew these things were happening…I’m guilty of that too.”
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Chance the Rapper is another Chicago-native who has condemned Kelly and reveled he considers his decision to work with him a “mistake” in the documentary.
“Making a song with R. Kelly was a mistake,” he says.
“We’re programmed to really be hypersensitive to black male oppression…But black women are exponentially [a] higher oppressed and violated group of people just in comparison to the whole world. Maybe I didn’t care because I didn’t value the accusers’ stories because they were black women. Usually, ni**as that get in trouble for shit like this on their magnitude of celebrity, it’s light-skinned women or white women. That’s when it’s a big story. I’ve never really seen any pictures of R. Kelly’s accusers.”
What are you going to do about the R.Kelly in YOUR family?
Ne-Yo took to social media to blast Kelly after the documentary directed by Dream Hampton aired last weekend.
“There is NO excuse. Music is important. It really is. But it’s not more important than protecting our children, protecting our little girls. PERIOD,” he wrote.
Tank addressed his reluctance to speak out as well. “We’ve invested so much of ourselves into this man that it’s hard for us to let go,” he wrote on Instagram. “I no longer have that issue.”
Omarion announced he and his B2K group mates would stop performing Kelly’s hits on their upcoming Millennium tour. “EVERYONE has to be RESPONSIBLE. Many have bared witness to the unthinkable and yet have remained silent,” he wrote on social media.
Even Kerry Washington weighed in on the explosive documentary. “#SurvivingRKelly is the #1 trending topic on @twitter. Amen. Speaking truth to power,” she posted.
Let’s hope this list of celebs who are speaking out against R. Kelly continues to grow. The music industry’s silence on the long-standing accusations has been deafening for years and now it’s time for them to use their voices to help end Kelly’s career.