Ever so often, we find stars with very little blemishes but overall success and fame is hardly managed by superstars. Celebrity management is an area or field that I am very much interested in, but I digress. Our ability to manage too much money, too much publicity, people treating us like Gods is different from person to person. Some people can stay humble while others allow it to get to their heads. Not everyone can keep their feet firmly on the ground when they are ascending in the public eye. They are told how their fans can’t do without them and they have over 50 advisers paid and unpaid. Ask MC Hammer, he had so many staff and aides, he went into bankruptcy. They tell them how to eat, what to wear, how to dress and who to be with. Sometimes these managers cut them away from their families and fuel their dependencies.
Please be aware that there are several persons who handle celebrities and they fuel the impunity, drug use, foolishness and lack of discipline among the stars.
Enter one of the most talented singers of the 21st century: R.Kelly. Talented, good-looking, and as we are now learning controlling and an alleged serial pedophile. In the documentaries that have since been released, Surviving, R.Kelly, he was accused by a slew of young women of sexual slavery, sexual abuse and harvesting them from schools and malls.
I have squinted, rolled my eyes, developed a low grade fever while watching an edition of these documentaries. I mean I have daughters and sisters and nieces. It is scary!The sound bites from his P.A at the time ran my blood cold. His Personal Assistant confirmed that he was among those who helped to lure the girls from high schools and malls into R.Kelly’s toxic embrace. One of R.Kelly’s singers introduced her 14 year old niece to R.Kelly in order to get her one step up inthe industry and Kelly not only began sleeping with her niece but is alleged to have urinated on the young girl after he was done. Monster, sexual deviant, arrogant sexual predator, all define the man who sang the record breaking multi-award winning song “I believe I can fly.” This song made us all believe in ourselves and conferred the God-like position on him like never before. He became deified, everyone’s high priest for success and an unbelievable dose of inspiration.
But the stories of him abusing minors did not start today. We all heard when he was accused many years ago and then discharged with no charges.
Remember he married Aaliyah and fraudulently doctored her birth certificate to show that she was older so he could marry her. R.Kelly has been a bandit for a long time but his stardom got us all blinkered and we all looked the other way. We idolize our stars and allow them get away with murder. My daughter who is 20 years old is horrified that there are fans sending dollars to bail out R.Kelly. Unbelievable!
What about his controlling ways?
Keeping six to eight girls at the same time in the same house with his ex-wife in situ was an art in control savvy.Everything is choreographed with the help of R.Kelly’s aides, so his ex-wife said she suspected but really never met any of the girls. Then as we have now heard there were orgies, 3 girls with R.Kelly and Kelly filming and encouraging 2 women to sleep with each other. A true freak if all of this is true. The fact that he claims that he was abused by a senior member of his family when he was young is not an excuse. Get help dude!
Finally, where are the parents? All parents must take responsibility for trying to give their daughters a leg up in the acting, music and creative industries by ceding their children to monsters. R.Kelly had many accomplices in their children’s destruction. Parents who handed their daughters to R.Kelly were part of the issue, some collected money and R.Kelly did as he pleased. He groomed the girls and most of them defend him because they have been euthanized psychologically and cannot get out of his grip.
How many of us parents want our kids to be musicians? How desperate are you? How desperate are today’s children to be famous?
There are many R.Kelly’s out there in Nigeria. Are they been held accountable? Will Kelly finally be brought to book? Are we so desperate to be Stars that we destroy our society?
Enough said.
Eugenia Abu
