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I'm not a big music fan and didn't really know much about R Kelly until recently and all the publicity about his trial and conviction.
I happened to notice a BBC documentary from three years ago about him on iplayer and being the curious type I thought I would give it a watch to learn a bit about what the background to all this was - and I was shocked!
Seems Kelly has been a known paedophile for years - over twenty at least - yet everyone turned a blind eye to it all.
I'm no expert about Savile's goings on but it was at the time these was no easy ways to prove what he was up to such as there is these years with mobile phone footage and internet search of electronic records and documents, etc.
It's abundantly clear from the documentary that it was clearly known by many what Kelly was doing for over twenty years and that those around him clearly thought more of the money they were earning being around him than the youngsters he serially abused.
Again I don't know if things are directly comparable to Savile but I get the feeling that Savile exploited the naivety and shame of the people he preyed on thirty/forty/fifty years ago whereas this generation of youngsters had more of an understanding of what the world was like and in someways willingly participants (see the interview of the two women outside Kelly's old school for instance).
Staggering to think in this day and age that Kelly was allowed to get away with what he was doing for so long with so many people knowing what was going on.
Again I suppose it is all about power - Kelly had it and those those who may have wanted to bring him down hadn't - I see a parallel in someway as how Lance Armstrong lasted so long at the top of the tree in cycling when many knew he was cheating.
Of course it pales into insignificance to the crimes Savile and Kelly committed and I somehow think Savile's was the worst of the two as I don't think any of the kids knew much about what they were getting into with him back then whereas I think more than a few had a much better understanding of the world before meeting Kelly.
The documentary is only 30 minutes long (and as I said above, published three years before he was brought to court) and well worth a watch to be shocked to learn how he got away with it for so long.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p067xbzc/r-kelly-the-sex-scandal-continues
I happened to notice a BBC documentary from three years ago about him on iplayer and being the curious type I thought I would give it a watch to learn a bit about what the background to all this was - and I was shocked!
Seems Kelly has been a known paedophile for years - over twenty at least - yet everyone turned a blind eye to it all.
I'm no expert about Savile's goings on but it was at the time these was no easy ways to prove what he was up to such as there is these years with mobile phone footage and internet search of electronic records and documents, etc.
It's abundantly clear from the documentary that it was clearly known by many what Kelly was doing for over twenty years and that those around him clearly thought more of the money they were earning being around him than the youngsters he serially abused.
Again I don't know if things are directly comparable to Savile but I get the feeling that Savile exploited the naivety and shame of the people he preyed on thirty/forty/fifty years ago whereas this generation of youngsters had more of an understanding of what the world was like and in someways willingly participants (see the interview of the two women outside Kelly's old school for instance).
Staggering to think in this day and age that Kelly was allowed to get away with what he was doing for so long with so many people knowing what was going on.
Again I suppose it is all about power - Kelly had it and those those who may have wanted to bring him down hadn't - I see a parallel in someway as how Lance Armstrong lasted so long at the top of the tree in cycling when many knew he was cheating.
Of course it pales into insignificance to the crimes Savile and Kelly committed and I somehow think Savile's was the worst of the two as I don't think any of the kids knew much about what they were getting into with him back then whereas I think more than a few had a much better understanding of the world before meeting Kelly.
The documentary is only 30 minutes long (and as I said above, published three years before he was brought to court) and well worth a watch to be shocked to learn how he got away with it for so long.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p067xbzc/r-kelly-the-sex-scandal-continues
