While R. Kelly was at one point one of the biggest R&B singers in the world, with 75 million records sold worldwide, the 55-year-old only had $300,000 in his bank account when he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in July 2019. In legal documents obtained by Radar Online, his legal team had presented the judge with a report from a doctor in a bid to avoid their client being handed a hefty sentence prior to last month’s verdict where he was found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering.
According to the aforementioned news outlet, while talking to the doctor, the “Religious Love” artist spoke about a range of topics, including his illiteracy, which he believed had led him to be taken advantage of throughout his career. R. Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, said he became fearful of reading at school and envied his fellow students who could write, read, and socialize with such ease. “I always get that if people could see my eyes or hear me read, they’d know I was the dummy that I was called at the time,” he was quoted saying.
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The doctor stated that from their evaluation, R. Kelly did have “significant impairments” in every area concerning his academic functioning, which placed his learning capabilities to be at an elementary school level (first to third grade). Furthermore, R. Kelly stressed how he was told his net worth was around $900 million, but because he couldn’t read or write, he actually did not have any knowledge of how much money he actually had, which, in the end, left him with just $300k. He said he visited a bank for the first time two months before his arrest where he also learned he had bad credit.
The Grammy winner vehemently said he was a victim of exploitation and gave several examples of where he felt people in his camp had done him wrong — particularly those who had access to his income. After speaking to his former manager about investing money into a cigar bar, a recording studio, and a keyboard branded by his name, he was met with false promises as those plans were never executed despite his request.
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From what R. Kelly reportedly said, his then-manager decided to rent himself a studio instead before opening up a restaurant out in Chicago — with funds that were supposed to have been used for his ex-client’s investment. He also touched on an incident where he was kidnapped in Nigeria in another act of financial exploitation, though specifics of the matter were redacted in the documents.
“He took out $10k for the first time in his life, and his account was frozen a month later,” the doctor continued. Prosecutors had alleged in court that R. Kelly actually had $1.2 million to his name which was sent to a friend’s bank account in a presumed attempt to avoid having to pay the victims who accused him of sexual assault, trafficking, and abuse.
R. Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison in late June.