The Hollywood Reporter - 31.07.2019

EMMYS

THE

RACE

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 20 JULY 31, 2019

KELLY: CBS/LAZARUS JEAN-BAPTISTE. HAMPTON: JESSE GRANT/GETTY IMAGES.

How I Took

Down R. Kelly

Surviving R. Kelly’s Emmy-nominated filmmaker on her 19-year pursuit

of the singer, now in jail facing sex crimes charges BY DREAM HAMPTON

During the sum-

mer of 2000, I was a

contributing writer

at Vibe magazine.

The editor asked me

if I’d fly to Chicago,

close neighbor to my hometown

of Detroit, to profile R. Kelly. The

promise was studio access as he

recorded his fourth solo album,

but it came with a warning from

his longtime publicist Regina

Daniels. I was not to ask about

his 1994 marriage to the then-15-

year-old singer Aaliyah.

They’d both publicly denied

the marriage ever happened

and seemed jointly committed

to silence. I ignored his camp’s

demand. I asked. He silently

glared at me. When the exchange

was included in the profile, he

got my number, called me and

yelled at me. “You know you

wasn’t supposed to include that,”

I remember him saying, as if I

were some naughty child and not

a magazine writer.

The cover story, an otherwise

softball profile, was on news-

stands the fall of 2000. On Dec. 21,

2000, music critic Jim DeRogatis

reported what should have been

a career-ending piece about R.

Kelly — that he’d settled a lawsuit

with vocalist Tiffany Hawkins.

She’d alleged that he had unlawful

sexual contact with her when she

was 16. Jim’s reporting was begin-

ning to establish that R. Kelly was

a predator with a pattern. Jim

spent the next two decades prov-

ing as much, but no one seemed to

care. The girls were young, black

and, besides Aaliyah, nameless.

R. Kelly was a huge talent with

seemingly unending success.

I wasn’t Chicago-based, so I

didn’t know about what black

Chicagoans euphemistically

called R. Kelly’s “preference for

young girls.” I’d spent my four

to five days with R. Kelly like

many of the girls and women

who accused him of sexual

and physical abuse would later

describe — in his studio watch-

ing him work and work out. His

various assistants would send for

food, and he’d be most produc-

tive from midnight to sunrise.

But what I’d not paid attention

to were the closed doors. Once,

one opened and I saw a few teen-

aged groups. I’d been in studios

before, and young artists were not

uncommon. I assumed they were

vocalists he was developing for

his new vanity label. When Jim’s

reporting was published, I was so

disappointed that I’d missed the

real story that I stopped writ-

ing profiles for years. I’d been in

Jeffrey Dahmer’s kitchen and not

opened the fridge.

Less than a year later, a video-

tape of what absolutely looked like

R. Kelly committing statutory

rape went viral where bootleg

urban black films were sold — in

gas stations and barber shops,

often in plain sight. He was

charged in 2002 with crimes

related to that tape, only after the

14-year-old’s aunt identified her

to an investigator. The 2008 trial

led to a “not guilty” verdict.

When the creative team at

Bunim Murray invited me to helm

Surviving R. Kelly, I understood it

partly as a penance. Sure, I’d put

myself on punishment, refusing

celebrity profiles. I’d even boycot-

ted the singer. Meanwhile, Jim

DeRogatis was reporting about R.

Kelly preying on a new generation

of girls and young women —

some whose parents were younger

than him by nearly a decade. I

began my career as a music critic,

taking on Dr. Dre for publicly and

brutally assaulting TV host Dee

Barnes in 1991. I’d never taken on

R. Kelly, and it was time.

I had no idea Surviving R. Kelly

would have any impact. Even after

the #MeToo moment was cost-

ing powerful men their careers

and reputations, Jim’s reporting

still seemed like screams into the

void. While we were in produc-

tion, the BBC aired a doc that

featured some of the women in

our project. It didn’t move the

needle. Still, we kept our heads

down and told a story that needed

six episodes, two more than we’d

planned. We worked to center the

survivors, to give them space to

unpack their stories with dignity.

I knew our series would shift

the conversation when I moni-

tored Twitter its first night. I

recognized the serious way black

women in particular were talk-

ing — not just about R. Kelly but

about the ways justice is denied

to black women victims of gender

and sexual violence. What I didn’t

know was that Chicago District

Attorney Kim Foxx and federal

agents also were watching. When

Foxx publicly asked other poten-

tial victims to contact her office,

I hoped that some of the many

women we’d talked to — women

who’d refused to come on camera

but provided corroboration —

might accept her invitation.

When I first talked to Lifetime

senior vp Brie Bryant before

coming on to Surviving R. Kelly as

showrunner, I confessed to hav-

ing a point of view — of wanting

justice, even if that justice was

just fans and supporters finally

turning away from him. My

highest hope was the work would

offer narrative support and serve

as a tool to the organizers and

advocates who spend their lives

fighting for justice for black girls

and women who’ve survived gen-

der and sexual violence. R. Kelly

earned the reckoning he’s experi-

encing. But the real breakthrough

is the brave way his survivors

shared with us. They are imper-

fect women with complicated

lives, and through their courage

we are having incredibly difficult

conversations about a kind of vio-

lence we’ve avoided confronting

for too long.

D

Hampton’s show inspired Gayle King to conduct

a now famous CBS News interview with R. Kelly.

Dream

Hampton