R&B Singer R. Kelly Lashes Out In Interview With Gayle King: ‘I’m Fighting For My Life’ [VIDEO]

Two weeks after the R&B singer was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four alleged victims, R. Kelly struggled to contain his emotions in a new interview with CBS This Morning’s co-host Gayle King.

In the first interview since his arrest which aired on Wednesday, Kelly grew increasingly upset and eventually stood up from his chair and yelled while directly looking into the camera. 

In a clip which was shared by the network ahead of the full interview, King begins by asking the 52-year-old singer why he decided to go through with the interview, “I’m very tired of all of the lies. I’ve been hearing things and seeing things on blogs. I’m just tired,” the singer began.

“What are the lies that you’re hearing that disturb you most?” King asked.

“All of them. Got little girls trapped in the basement … helicopters over my house trying to rescue someone that doesn’t need rescuing because they’re not in my house,” he said. “Handcuffing people, starving people. I have a harem, what you call it — a cult. I don’t even really know what a cult is. But I know I don’t have one.”

King then went onto ask the singer if he had ever done anything wrong to women. 

“Lots of things wrong when it comes to women that I apologized, but I apologized in those relationships at the time that I was in the relationships,” Kelly responded.

King then followed up and asked if he had broken any laws when it came to women.

“Absolutely not,” Kelly claimed. 

The two then went on to talk about the Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly, which was released in January and featured numerous interviews with Kelly’s family members, colleagues, former friends, and women who claimed that the singer and producer had been using his influence to sexually and physically abuse women and young girls. 

“If you really look at that documentary … everybody says something bad about me,” Kelly said. “Nobody said nothing good. They were describing Lucifer. I’m not Lucifer. I’m a man. I make mistakes, but I’m not a devil, and by no means am I a monster.”

Kelly also put blame on social media for the allegations against him.

“You can start a rumor on a guy like me or a celebrity just like that. All you have to do is push a button on your phone and say, ‘So and so did this to me, R. Kelly did this to me.’ And if you get any traction from that, if you’re able to write a book from that, if you’re able to get a reality show … then any girl that I had a relationship in the past that it just didn’t work out, she can come and say the same exact thing. I’m talking about the power of social media,” he said. 

King then went onto ask if Kelly had ever had sex with anyone under the age of 17.

“No. No,” Kelly claimed.

King followed up by asking the singer if he was claiming that all the women who have accused him of abuse were lying. 

“Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely,” Kelly said as he grew emotional and faced the camera. “I have been assassinated. I have been buried alive. But I’m alive.”

“Forget how you feel about me! Hate me if you want to, love me if you want, but use your common sense!” he exclaimed. “How stupid would it be for me with my crazy past and what I’ve been through to be like, ‘Oh right now, I think I need to be a monster and hold girls against their will, chain ’em up in my basement and don’t let ’em eat and don’t let ’em out?’”

“Stop it. Y’all, quit playing! I didn’t do this stuff,” he added while getting choked up. “This is not me! I’m fighting for my f—ing life!”

“Y’all killing me with this s—!” Kelly continued as he stood up. “I gave you 30 years of my f—ing career!”

“Thirty years of my career! And y’all trying to kill me? You killing me, man! This is not about music! I’m trying to have a relationship with my kids! And I can’t do it! Y’all just don’t want to believe the truth! You don’t want to believe it!” Kelly said.

Kelly’s publicist then helped the singer calm down, with Kelly completely ending the interview saying, “I’m just telling the truth. I’m just telling the truth. And the reason I’m emotional — and I apologize for that — it’s because this is the first time I was able to say something … I’ve said nothing!”

Last Tuesday, Kelly was released from jail after being indicted by a grand jury for 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against four alleged victims. 

The R&B singer was then granted bail after paying 10 percent of his $1 million bail amount. 

Kelly’s alleged abusive behavior resurfaced in July 2017, after Buzzfeed published a report accusing the star of running a “sex cult” out his Chicago and Atlanta homes, and after the January release of Surviving R. Kelly.

According to reports, Kelly allegedly seduced multiple young women with the promise of helping them kickstart a music career, but instead “groomed” them into being his personal sex objects, who he allegedly had control over in every aspect of their lives.

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Kelly, who is due in court on March 22,  has maintained that all claims made against him are false.