Robert Sylvester Kelly (born January 8, 1967) is a singer, songwriter, record producer, and convicted sex offender from the United States. He has been dubbed “the King of R&B,” “the King of Pop-Soul,” and the “Pied Piper of R&B” for his contributions to the evolution of R&B and hip hop.
Kelly is well-known for songs such as “I Believe I Can Fly,” “Bump N’ Grind,” “Your Body’s Callin’,” “Gotham City,” “Ignition (Remix),” “If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time,” “The World’s Greatest,” “I’m a Flirt (Remix),” and the hip hop hopeful “Trapped in the Closet.” Kelly received three Grammy Awards for “I Believe I Can Fly” in 1998. Kelly is primarily a singer-songwriter, although he has also written, produced, and remixed songs, singles, and albums for other artists. He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1996 for his work on Michael Jackson’s song “You Are Not Alone.”
Kelly has sold over 75 million albums worldwide, making him the most successful R&B male musician of the 1990s and one of the best-selling music artists in the world.
In 2010, Billboard magazine named Kelly the most successful R&B musician in history, calling him the Top R&B/Hip Hop Artist between 1985 and 2010. With over 32 million record sales in 2012, he was ranked as the 55th best-selling music artist in the United States.
Kelly has been accused of sexual assault on several occasions, most notably with teenage females, since the 1990s.
He has faced several legal litigations and criminal charges in Chicago, New York, Illinois, and Minnesota.
He refuted the claims on several occasions.
In June 2002, he was charged with 21 counts of child pornography. Six years later, in 2008, he was acquitted. Surviving R. Kelly, a Lifetime docuseries that aired in January 2019, highlighted claims of sexual abuse by many women, charges that Kelly continues to deny. RCA Records dismissed R. Kelly in response to public outcry via the Mute R. Kelly hashtag.
Kelly was charged on 10 charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse by a Cook County grand jury in Chicago in February 2019, followed by an additional 11 counts of sexual assault and abuse filed by the same court in May.
He was arrested on federal counts of sex offenses, human trafficking, child pornography, racketeering, and obstruction of justice on July 11, 2019.
As of January 29, 2021, Kelly was facing 22 federal criminal accusations. Kelly was ordered detained until his trial on the accusations by a federal court. Kelly was found guilty on nine charges by a federal jury in New York on September 27, 2021, including racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, abduction, bribery, sex trafficking, and a violation of the Mann Act. The judge ordered that he be held in detention until his sentence on May 4, 2022.
Kelly is scheduled to stand trial again in August 2022 for manufacturing child pornography.
What was R Kelly’s most recent net worth?
Kelly has worked hard since then to create new tracks. He was recognized as the R&B king throughout the 1990s, and his music has sold millions of copies. R Kelly’s net worth is $-2 million as of 2022.
What is the source of R Kelly’s low net worth?
Kelly is said to have spent tens of millions of dollars to settle scores of lawsuits filed by women who claimed the singer molested them. Kelly allegedly lost a significant chunk of his personal worth after divorcing Andrea Lee, his wife from 1996 to 2009, the most profitable years of his career.
Is R. Kelly the sole owner of his masters?
Kelly’s recordings are still held by RCA, a branch of Sony Music, but Universal controls his composition copyrights. According to industry estimates, 780 million steams Kelly’s total in the US since the beginning of 2019 would generally produce roughly $3 million in compensation to rights holders.
R Kelly’s net worth
R. Kelly is a singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer from the United States. R Kelly has a net worth of -$2 million. Kelly’s net worth was easily in the tens of millions, even as high as $100 million, during his height. Kelly disclosed to a judge in April 2020, while arguing for his release from jail, that he owes roughly $1.9 million to the IRS alone.
Early Years and the Beginnings of a Career
On January 8, 1967, Robert Sylvester Kelly was born on Chicago’s south side. He skipped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming a subway musician. When he won a $100,000 award on the television talent program Big Break, he got his big break. Kelly joined with Jive Records in 1991, and his group Public Announcement released the album “Born into the 90s” in 1993.
Success
R. Kelly’s solo debut, “12 Play,” was released in November 1993. The album was later certified six times platinum, owing primarily to the hit “Bump n’ Grind.”
At the same time, Kelly established a career as a record producer for other musicians. He produced and authored the whole first album of Aaliyah, a teenage pop vocalist.
His album “R. Kelly” sold four million copies in 1995. Soon after, his track “I Believe I Can Fly” topped the charts and garnered three Grammy nominations. In the 2000s, Kelly published a string of multi-platinum albums, as well as the multi-part hip-hop opera Trapped in the Closet, which he distributed in segments to radio stations. The final section was made available to the public in the spring of 2010.
R Kelly has 14 studio albums, five compilation albums, and three collaborative albums to his credit. Kelly has received scores of prizes in addition to his three Grammys, including multiple AMAs, a BET award, and numerous Billboard awards. “Black Panties” and “The Buffet,” his most recent albums, were released in 2013 and 2015, respectively. From 1994 to 2013, he also took part in 12 official tours across the world.
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Personal Life and Disputes
Kelly secretly married Aaliyah in 1994, however, the marriage was subsequently dissolved. In 1996, he married dancer Andrea Lee, with whom he had three children until separating in 2009.
R Kelly’s career has been riddled with problems throughout the years. He was detained and accused of having sex with an underage female. He was subsequently cleared of all 14 counts levelled against him.
A Misfortune
R. Kelly’s net worth might have easily surpassed $50-100 million if he had never been involved in any legal issues. Kelly is said to have spent tens of millions of dollars to settle scores of lawsuits filed by women who claimed the singer molested them. Kelly allegedly lost a significant chunk of his personal worth after divorcing Andrea Lee, his wife from 1996 to 2009, the most profitable years of his career.
Kelly owes $5 million in overdue taxes stretching back seven years, it was found in 2012. He lost his Chicago house to foreclosure in 2013 after failing to pay his mortgage since 2010. He was evicted from two Atlanta-area properties in 2018 after failing to pay over $30,000 in unpaid rent and fees. He was residing in a leased condo in Chicago’s Trump Tower in recent years.
Financial and legal issues
R. Kelly published a 19-minute song on Spotify in July 2018 in which he addressed several of his charges. Kelly said in this song that she is broke and needs to tour “simply to pay the rent.” He also admits to owing the IRS $20 million at one point and having to borrow millions of dollars from his label to pay expenses. His financial difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that he is unable to perform in many countries due to his scandals, and his US tours are routinely thwarted by protesters. Furthermore, Spotify and other streaming platforms have removed his tracks from their public playlists. Individuals can still listen to his tracks on Spotify using their own accounts, but they will not be suggested in public playlists like Discover Weekly or other Spotify-curated playlists and radio channels.
After receiving complaints that the property had undergone repeated renovations without licenses, Chicago building inspectors were granted permission to check R. Kelly’s recording studio in January 2019. R. Kelly does not own the studio and has been renting it since 2017. At the time of the inspection, the 8000-square-foot structure was up for sale for $4 million. Simultaneously, the building owner filed a lawsuit against R. Kelly for unpaid rent. Kelly’s rent was $23,000 per month, according to the lawsuit, and he hadn’t paid in seven months. At the time of the filing, he owed the landlord $167,000 in back rent.
R. Kelly’s record company, RCA/Sony, said on January 14 that they were putting all of his future music releases on hold, essentially preventing Kelly from making additional money. On his most current record deal, he owes RCA/Sony two more albums. RCA/Sony has also declined to fund new music videos. Kelly has not been convicted of any crime as of this writing, putting the label in a difficult situation. It appears that firing him and withholding funds based on charges would be legally difficult. If his contract has a “morals clause,” RCA/Sony may be able to utilize it to back out of the arrangement.
R. Kelly was arrested in late February 2019 on a slew of fresh accusations. His bond was placed at $1 million, which could have been paid in $100,000 installments. Unfortunately, Kelly was so short on funds that it took him many days to come up with the money. In truth, the $100,000 was alleged to have come from a lady called Valencia Love, whose exact affiliation to R. Kelly is unknown. While Kelly was imprisoned, his ex-wife Andrea filed a lawsuit demanding $160,000 in overdue child support.