Fly away: Repeated transgressions against women by R Kelly and other stars are brushed off as minor lapses.
Fresh off the conviction of Bill Cosby, the Time’s Up movement for gender equality on Monday urged the music business to dump R&B star R. Kelly.
The singer – whose smooth voice has generated years of hits, most notably “I Believe I Can Fly” – has faced repeated allegations of mistreatment of underage girls and young women.
Calling the conviction last week of comedian Cosby “just a start,” the Women of Colour division of Time’s Up urged “people everywhere to join with us to insist on a world in which women of all kinds can pursue their dreams free from sexual assault, abuse and predatory behavior.”
Backing a social media campaign dubbed #MuteRKelly, the women’s movement urged the singer’s record label as well as streaming services Spotify and Apple Music to drop him and called on the Greensboro Coliseum in North Carolina to cancel his concert scheduled on May 11.
“We demand appropriate investigations and inquiries into the allegations of R. Kelly’s abuse made by women of colour and their families for over two decades now,” the Women of Colour of Time’s Up said in a statement.
“And we declare with great vigilance and a united voice to anyone who wants to silence us – their time is up.”
The singer has already been removed from the lineup of a concert Saturday at the University of Illinois at Chicago after a petition campaign.
Responding on Instagram on Sunday, Kelly – a Chicago native who partially lives in the Trump Tower in the Midwestern metropolis – apologised to fans for not performing.
“I never heard of a show being canceled because of rumors. But I guess there’s a first time for everything,” he said in a video.
Kelly, 51, was acquitted in 2008 of charges of child pornography after the Chicago Sun-Times reported on a video that allegedly showed him in sexual acts with an underage girl.
Earlier in April, a woman filed a complaint with police in Dallas alleging that Kelly knowingly gave her a sexually transmitted disease during a relationship that began when she was 19.
And last year, BuzzFeed News reported that Kelly was holding six women in virtual slavery with power over their clothing, diet and sexual encounters, which he would allegedly record.
Kelly has denied all the allegations against him. Last year, he said he was “alarmed and disturbed” by the report of his purported sex cult.
© Agence France-Presse