The dust may be settling on Surviving R. Kelly, yet his career has taken yet another blow. RCA Records has dropped Kelly sources tell Variety. The news comes after of the Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly chronicles multiple women coming forward with detailed allegations of sexual misconduct against the singer.
Kelly had been strongly accused of sexual misconduct since the mid-1990s. In 2002, he was charged with 21 counts of child pornography over a videotape that prosecutors alleged showed him having sex with a 14-year-old girl. He was acquitted of the charges in 2008 after the woman declined to testify. Just in the past year, reports have arisen of Kelly essentially holding women captive in a “sex cult”. Multiple other reports have surfaced over the years.
As for Kelly's release from the record label, no external announcement of the move is planned for the immediate future, says a source, who added that the company took its time to wade through the issues “responsibly” to avoid legal ramifications. R. Kelly was removed from the list of signed artists fromRCA Records website shortly after 10 a.m. PT on Friday, January 18.
The R&B star, once one of the biggest and most influential stars in pop music, had been signed to Jive Records since the beginning of his career in the early 1990s. When Jive became part of Sony BMG, he became under the Sony umbrella. He has been under contract at RCA, a Sony subsidiary, since 2012.
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