'I'm fighting for my f---ing life': R. Kelly sobs in first interview since arrest

In his first interview since his arrest last month, R&B singer R. Kelly denied charges of sexual abuse and allegations that he manipulated women into staying with him in emotionally and physically abusive relationships.

In an interview with Gayle King that will air on US breakfast show CBS This Morning on Wednesday and Thursday, Kelly, whose real name is Robert Kelly, grew emotional, screaming, swearing and pleading to the camera.

Two excerpts from the interview were released on Tuesday night, US time.

"Hate me if you want to, love me if you want," Kelly said in once clip. "But just use your common sense. How stupid would it be for me, with my crazy past and what I've been through — oh, right now I just think I need to be a monster, hold girls against their will, chain them up in my basement, and don't let them eat, don't let them out!"

He continued, directly into the camera and growing tearful: "I didn't do this stuff! This is not me!"

"I'm fighting for my f---ing life!" he said.

R. Kelly at a Chicago police station on February 22. Credit: AP

Kelly, 52, was charged last month in Chicago with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four women, three of whom were minors at the time. His arrest came after a Lifetime documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, brought new attention to accusations that he had mistreated women and revived prosecutors' interest in his behavior.

He was released from jail last week after a woman describing herself as a friend of Kelly posted a US$100,000 bond.

In the clips released Tuesday, Kelly did not address the charges directly, but said that all the allegations against him were "not true."

According to prosecutors, one of the three underage girls was the same one who appeared in a sex tape with Kelly that resulted in a 2008 trial on child pornography charges. The girl did not testify then, and Kelly was found not guilty after his lawyers successfully argued that his identity could not be proved.

Kelly referred to his acquittal in the interview, telling King: "You can't double jeopardy me like that. You can't. It's not fair."

The new charges involving that girl are based on a new videotape, about two decades old, that came from someone who had once been in contact with Kelly. That person recently gave the tape to Michael Avenatti, the celebrity lawyer, who turned it over to prosecutors.

In the tape, the girl refers several times to having 14-year-old body parts and, according to Avenatti, the acts depicted in the video were different from those at the centre of the 2008 case, eliminating any issue of double jeopardy.

Kelly answered some of King's questions by saying that people were "going back to the past."

Some of the interview covered allegations separate from Kelly's criminal case: that he has held women in a kind of sexual and emotional captivity, dictating their every move, including when they can go to the bathroom.

An interview King conducted with Azriel Clary and Joycelyn Savage, two women who are living with Kelly and have come to court in support of him, will air Friday. Clary's and Savage's families have said Kelly is holding the women in a cult-like environment, but Kelly's lawyer has said they are with the singer of their own free will.

New York Times