R. Kelly, who has long faced allegations of sexual misconduct, compares himself to Bill Cosby and defends the comedian against the women who claim he drugged and sexually assaulted them, according to an interview with GQ magazine posted online Wednesday.
“When I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, or 19, there’s something strange about it,” Kelly said.
“If God showed me that they were telling the truth, I would say that’s wrong. I don’t care if it was a zillion years ago. But God would have to do that, because God is the only one can show me that. No man can tell me that. No woman can tell me that. And when you wait 70 years, 50 years, 40 years, to say something that simple, it’s strange. You know why I say that is because it happened to me, and it wasn’t true.”
Kelly, who was born Robert Kelly and raised on the South Side, was acquitted by a Cook County jury of child pornography charges in 2008. Documents released to the media after the trial included claims by a witness that she was paid off by a Kelly associate though jurors said they did not find her testimony to be credible.
Kelly, who admits to paying women who accused him of underage sex, detailed an upbringing characterized by sexual abuse and an absent father to GQ and said he tried to be like Cosby, the patriarch on “The Cosby Show,” when he had children.
“Just like having no father, that’s a generational curse. Which is why, when my kids were born, I was Bill Cosby in the house. You know, the good one. You know, let’s be clear there: How we saw Bill Cosby when we were coming up,” Kelly said.
Kelly, 49, made headlines last month after he walked out of a Huffington Post interview that touched on the sexual abuse allegations against him. His album “The Buffet,” released last month, hasn’t sold as well compared to his previous albums.
