R. Kelly silenced Aaliyah and her family through a non-disclosure agreement,following his marriage and subsequent cancellation to the then 15-year-oldsinger.
The new allegations were made in the final installment of Lifetime’s“Surviving R. Kelly,” which aired on Jan. 2 and Jan. 3. The docuseriescentered around R. Kelly’s 2022 federal trial where the NDA was brought up inthe courtroom as evidence. The late Aaliyah was Jane Doe #1 in the trial.
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“Surviving R. Kelly” utilizes Aaliyah’s story to spotlight her as a victim ofR. Kelly, after years of the media and music industry scandalizing hermarriage to the now-convicted singer in the 90’s.
Aaliyah’s debut album in 1994 was titled “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number” andwas recorded when she was 14-years-old. R. Kelly — who was Aaliyah’s mentorand was first introduced to her by her uncle, music executive and managerBarry Hankerson — was a lead songwriter and producer of the album. At the timethe album was released, rumors circulated that there was a relationshipbetween the 15-year-old Aaliyah and the 27-year-old R. Kelly.
The pair secretly married in August 1994. Aaliyah was 15 at the time, but themarriage certificate falsified her age as 18. The marriage was canceled byAaliyah’s parents in Feb. 1995.
In “Surviving R. Kelly,” on-camera interviews with individuals from R. Kelly’scamp who were in the room when the duo wed express their regret about themarriage. Individuals who were close to both R. Kelly and Aaliyah share newdetails about the legal agreement that was allegedly forged between R. Kellyand Aaliyah’s family.
Members of Aaliyah’s family declined to comment to producers of “Surviving R.Kelly,” per a statement that aired as part of the Lifetime docuseries.
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A childhood friend of R. Kelly and his former security, Gem Pratt, appears in“Surviving R. Kelly” and claims that Aaliyah’s father was furious about themarriage and forced the cancellation. Pratt alleges that Aaliyah’s family hada contractual arrangement with R. Kelly that stated they wouldn’t presscharges against him for the illegal marriage after it was cancelled; in turn,R. Kelly sold the rights to his first three albums to Aaliyah’s family, givingthem a financial incentive.
“Her dad didn’t want her anywhere near him,” Pratt says in the docuseries.
Various on-camera guests in “Surviving R. Kelly” described the marriage as away to get R. Kelly to avoid jail time for statutory rape of a minor.
The final episodes of “Surviving R. Kelly” devote time to covering theenablers in R. Kelly’s camp, who turned a blind eye to his abuse over threedecades and helped the convicted musician make arrangements to see hisvictims, including booking flights for underage girls to cross state lines forprivate meetings. One prosecutor who appeared as a legal expert in thedocuseries described R. Kelly as “running a criminal enterprise.” Anotherexpert said “everyone had a financial incentive to look the other way.”
“He couldn’t do this by himself. It’s impossible…It’s clear as day there wereenablers,” said R. Kelly’s former security guard, Pratt. He later said, “Thiswas not a one-man operation. Most people in that camp knew that a lot of thesegirls were underage. They had to.”
The NDA was brought up in R. Kelly’s New York trial in 2022, but did notreceive widespread coverage. The use of NDAs has become a hot-button issue insexual harassment cases, particularly in the workplace, highlighting animbalance of power with the perpetrator or corporations silencing victimsthrough forced legal documents.
Prior to R. Kelly’s trial, journalist Jim DeRogatis — the reporter who firstbroke news of R. Kelly’s sexual abuse more than two decades ago — uncoveredthe NDA that R. Kelly used against Aaliyah. A few years ago, DeRogatis spokeabout the documents that were leaked to him, stating in an interview that theannulment and Aaliyah’s legal claim against R. Kelly had been sealed.
“It’s a harrowing document,” he said. “A non-disclosure agreement on both herpart and Kelly’s, vowing not to pursue further legal claims for physicalabuse. So, it wasn’t just an underage sexual relationship, he hit her,allegedly, according to that court document.”
Speaking to variety about the final installment of “Surviving R. Kelly,”executive producer Jesse Daniels said that the producing team was careful notto exploit Aaliyah in the docuseries, and hoped to highlight the abuse shetragically endured by R. Kelly when she was a teenager. “We have had a lot ofconversations about how to tell Aaliyah’s story every time because we reallywant to be respectful of her legacy. But what she went through, we can’t turnour backs on,” said Daniels.
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