History of allegations.
1)A 20-year-old woman is suing R Kelly, claiming he
unlawfully gave her alcohol, assaulted her and gave her a sexually transmitted disease.
Faith Rodgers told BBC Three the star subjected to her humiliating sexual encounters during which he called her "nasty, degrading things" during a year-long relationship.
2) The star, then aged 27, marries 15-year-old singer Aaliyah at a secret ceremony in Chicago. Vibe magazine later discovered that Aaliyah had
lied on the wedding certificate about her age, listing herself as 18. The marriage was annulled in February 1995.
For the rest of her career, Aaliyah dodged questions about the nature of her relationship. "When people ask me, I tell them, 'Hey, don't believe all that mess,'" she told one interviewer. "We're close and people took it the wrong way."
3) "Emotional distress"
Tiffany Hawkins sues R Kelly for the "personal injuries and emotional distress" she suffered during a three-year relationship with the star.
In court documents, she said she began having sex with Kelly in 1991, when she was 15 and he was 24, and the relationship ended three years later, when she turned 18. According to the Chicago Sun Times, Hawkins sought $10 million in damages, but accepted a fraction of that amount ($250,000) when the case was settled in 1998.
4) 2001: Sued by intern
Tracy Sampson sues R Kelly, accusing him of
inducing her "into an indecent sexual relationship" when she was 17 years old.
The woman, a former intern at Epic Records, claimed she was "treated as his personal sex object and cast aside".
"He often tried to control every aspect of my life including who I would see and where I would go," she said in her legal case against him. The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, said the
New York Post.
5) April and May 2002: Two more court cases
Kelly is sued for a third time by Patrice Jones, a Chicago woman
who claims he impregnated her when she was underage, and that she was forced to have an abortion.
A woman named Montina Woods also sued Kelly, alleging that he videotaped them having sex without her knowledge. The recording was allegedly circulated on an R Kelly "sex tape" sold by bootleggers under the title R Kelly Triple-X.
6) June 2002:
Charged over child pornography
The star is charged with 21 counts of making child pornography, involving intercourse, oral sex, urination, and other sexual acts.
Chicago police accused him of videotaping each of these acts and enticing a minor to participate in them. All of the charges related to one girl, born in September 1984.
His arrest stemmed from a video which was sent anonymously to the Chicago Sun Times earlier in the year. They passed it on to police, who verified the authenticity of the tape with help from FBI forensics experts.
Kelly, who posted $750,000 bail, immediately denied the charges in an interview with MTV and later pleaded not guilty in court.
It took six years for the case to come to trial, during which time Kelly released his wildly successful Trapped In The Closet album; and was nominated for an Image Award by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), prompting widespread criticism.
The jury eventually concluded they could not prove that the girl on the tape was a minor, and Kelly was found not guilty on all counts.
7) 2002 - 2004: Arrest prompts further charges
Kelly is charged with a further
12 counts of making child pornography in Florida, where he was arrested at his holiday home.
These charges came after police seized a camera during the arrest, which allegedly showed the star having sex with an underage girl.
The charges were dropped when a judge agreed with Kelly's defence team that police lacked sufficient evidence to justify a search.
8) July 2017: Allegations of a "cult"
Last summer, Buzzfeed published a long and detailed report accusing R Kelly of
trapping six women in a sex "cult".
The article alleged that Kelly seduced young women when they approached him for help with their music careers, before taking control of their lives - dictating "what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records".
All of the women cited in the article were of legal age; and one later denied the claims that she was being held against her will.
That's quite a list.
I'd note that in former USSR like countries grown ups claiming they were "seduced" and called this and that during sex would be laughed at.
Coercion would need to be physical/under threat of violence to count.
Underage sex allegations would be taken seriously.
