R. Kelly Got Indicted For Allegedly Bribing A Government Employee So He Could Marry A 15-Year-Old Aaliyah

After spending several decades as the music industry’s worst-kept creep secret, R. Kelly is finally facing the music, so to speak. So remember R. Kelly’s extremely questionable relationship with the late great Aaliyah? It’s been recently discovered that marrying an underage girl wasn’t the only illegal thing about that marriage.

According to The New York Times, R. Kelly is now facing a bribery charge on top of the 1.8 million other charges he’s been hit with. Yesterday, federal prosecutors met in a Brooklyn court with a revised indictment against R. Kelly regarding his 5-count racketeering, kidnapping, and sex trafficking charge (R. Kelly pleaded not guilty to that four months ago). They took us back to August 31st, 1994, when R. Kelly gave us the world’s loudest warning about R. Kelly. That was the day he married a then-15 year old Aaliyah at a hotel in Chicago. He was 27 at the time. The marriage was annulled in February 1995 by her parents.

It was always a bit of a mystery how a 15-year-old girl could get married in the state of Illinois. According to the marriage license, her age listed was 18. But you need ID to get married, so however did this all work? Prosecutors say on August 30th, one day before the wedding, R. Kelly bribed a government employee to obtain a fake ID for a “Jane Doe #1.” The fake ID was then used to fake her age on the marriage certificate. Prosecutors have evidence backing their allegation, as well as word from a person “familiar” with the situation.

The reason this new information is relevant is because R. Kelly’s racketeering charge involves the allegation that he sexually exploited underage girls and coerced them into sexual activity.

Earlier this year, R. Kelly’s lawyer claimed that R. Kelly had no idea Aaliyah was 15 when they got married. His lawyer also alleged that Aaliyah was the one who lied about her age when they got married. Back in January, TMZ dug up an old interview in which R. Kelly claimed to be producing a 14-year-old “talented lady, a young lady” named Aaliyah. And then there’s this interview from 1994, in which R. Kelly and Aaliyah can both be seen with rings on their left hands. When Aaliyah was asked how old she was, she refused to say. She also denied anything romantic was going on between them, saying that R. Kelly was simply her “best friend.”

R. Kelly’s lawyer told The Times yesterday that he doesn’t believe the new indictment will alter the case in any way. What’s R. Kelly paying his lawyer for if he can’t even be bothered to make an “Age ain’t nothing but a number” mention? But R. Kelly’s lawyer is half right. It might not alter the case, but it definitely won’t alter the public’s perception of R. Kelly. Secretly buying a fake ID so he could marry an underage girl is about as on-brand as you can get for R. Kelly.

Pic: Wenn.com