The horrific allegations against R. Kelly weren’t somehow revealed when Lifetime aired its six-part documentary on the hitmaker this weekend. They were common knowledge to anyone who’d paid even a cursory amount of attention to the music industry for the past two decades. And yet, even in an exhaustive expose, Lifetime could only find a couple of contemporaries willing to speak out against Kelly on camera? Why?
Who could know about the allegations surrounding Kelly and still work with him? Almost everyone, apparently. But why haven’t any of his former peers publicly disowned him? What makes Kelly’s long reckoning different from the more rapid cancellations and public condemnations that have become a hallmark of the #MeToo movement? And will this finally, mercifully, be the last straw for Kelly’s ability to work in the industry?
GUEST: Dalton Higgins, author, journalist, publicist