The management team for R. Kelly has reportedly shut down an email statement made on behalf of the veteran R&B singer on Friday (May 4).
According to Billboard, Kelly’s management has revealed the email wasn’t authorized and issued a statement about the mixup.
“The person who released the statement did so without authorization and without talking to the star, and she isn’t an employee of R. Kelly management,” the statement read. “The singer and his manager had no idea of who she was. We have learned she was employed by a professional services firm, and that she has been fired for putting out the unauthorized statement.”
The person Kelly’s team is referring to is Katie Thompson who said she was sending the email on behalf of R. Kelly Tours. In the statement, she took aim at the media for having “dissected and manipulated these false allegations.”
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The person originally said to be Kelly in the statement also referred to himself as “a God-fearing man, a son, a brother, and most importantly a father” elsewhere in the letter.
The email came on the same day Buzzfeed released another scathing article involving the singer. According to the story, there’s now two new women who have come forward with sexual abuse allegations against Kelly.
Over the weekend, a taped phone call between Kelly and one of his accusers was obtained by TMZ.
The audio consists of the singer going back-and-forth with a 20-year-old woman who filed a criminal complaint against him for allegedly getting her high on drugs and liquor, and then giving her an STD when she was 19.
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Although the audio does lack some context, Kelly appears to seek an apology from the woman on the phone. At one point he asks if she was “back” from “where you were in your head.”
Last month, Vox reported Kelly’s publicist, lawyer and assistant all severed ties with him following the barrage of sexual abuse allegations.
Listen to the full audio from Kelly’s phone conversation below.[apple_news_ad type=”any”]
