After watching 2 episodes of the documentary “Surviving R.Kelly” yesterday, I woke up early this morning feeling unsettled and troubled, remembering things that were mentioned. The women in the documentary all had the same, horrifying story—they met R. Kelly when they were teenagers and once they became involved with him, they fell prey to his controlling and domineering nature (he seemed nice at first)—he kept the victims isolated and didn’t want them to look at or speak to anyone else except him. If they stood up to him, their rebellion was met with a smack across the face, belittling, etc.

Kelly’s younger brother revealed that he and Kelly had been molested by a family member at a young age, whom they didn’t want to name. When he confided into Kelly about what happened, Kelly simply denied it.

I think about how he preyed on the singer Aaliyah—she was sweet, shy, hid behind her sunglasses and in the documentary, R. Kelly’s brother stated that he was shy and afraid to look at people in the eye. I wonder if Aaliyah reminded him of himself when he was younger. There was a photo of her and Kelly together and she looked angry; in another photo, I could see fear and worry in her eyes.  Perhaps she felt conflicted, confused, even overwhelmed about the relationship. If she was still alive today, I wonder if she would come forward or would she be afraid to?

Other disturbing things in the documentary:

• Kelly’s older brother (currently in jail) said he didn’t understand what the problem was with his brother having a “preference.” Well, Kelly’s “preference” shouldn’t be someone’s child; his “preference” is statutory rape!

• People that were bringing more teen girls to this disgusting creep—seems like they didn’t even have a conscience. They were leading lambs to slaughter—basically helping to have the lives of these girls destroyed and turned upside down.

• The guy who forged the marriage documents between Kelly and Aaliyah–as he reminisced about their wedding day, he spoke about it as if it were something cute and not disturbing.

I’ve seen some comments online about the victims, saying that the girls were fast and they lied about their age. So what? They’re still KIDS. They don’t know anything, they are not adults, and they’re not mature. Kelly needs to be held accountable for his disgusting actions. Stop trying to make this guy an innocent victim because he’s NOT. Of course, he was molested as a child and I’m sorry that happened to him, but did that mean he had to continue the cycle? Seems like there are two paths that people take when they’re abused—they either say, “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.” They don’t hurt others. Then then there are the ones who continue abusing others—maybe they’re “taking back” the power they wished they had when they were abused as children.

If society didn’t focus on making the victims feel like villains and protecting the pedophiles, more people would feel comfortable coming forward and get the help and support they need.

I’m praying that R.Kelly gets the jail time he deserves—and right now, I think he should be in jail for life so he can never mess with another child again. And maybe, just maybe this could set an example in our neighborhoods so these undercover perverts can see that it will happen to them, too.

Stop playing around and boycott his a**. Make him lose his sponsors, shut down his concert venues, hit him where it hurts—his pockets. Would you still defend and support him if he slept your underage sister, daughter, niece, cousin? This world doesn’t care about your kids so you better do whatever you can to protect them.