R Kelly performs in Chicago despite investigations into rape claims

R Kelly is not backing down in the wake of a new Lifetime series which featured multiple women claiming the singer is a pedophile who allegedly rapes, beats and enslaves women.

DailyMail.com has obtained video that shows the singer performing to a packed club on Wednesday night in Chicago. 

The singer, who one night earlier celebrated his 52nd birthday at his studio in the city, is seen standing behind a table with bottles of booze as he belts out his 1994 song Bump n’ Grind.

There is no music backing the singer which suggests that the performance was not planned and rather a spur of the moment decision.

Kelly is also seen in the video listening as the crowd sings back parts of his verses, seemingly unbothered by the allegations against the singer.

He also declares at one point: ‘I don’t give a f*** what’s going on tonight.’ 

Accused: R Kelly (above on Wednesday) performed songs for guests at a club on Wednesday night, despite investigations into the singer’s alleged sexual misconduct

Carefree: DailyMail.com has obtained video of the singer as he performs songs including Bump n' Grind while guests cheer and take video

Carefree: DailyMail.com has obtained video of the singer as he performs songs including Bump n’ Grind while guests cheer and take video

On Wednesday, two women reached out to the Cook County State Attorney’s Office with claims against Kelly.

That came on the heels of State’s Attorney Kim Foxx urging any victims or witnesses with information to reach out.

There are still no criminal charges against Kelly in Chicago at this time, and no investigation has been launched as of yet into the singer.  

It was also revealed on Wednesday that Kelly’s manager threatened to ruin a man and his family in a series of harassing texts and phone calls after learning he had participated in the new Lifetime series.

Don Russell texted and called Timothy Savage to say it ‘would be best for him and his family if the documentary does not air,’ according to a police report in Georgia.

Russell later said that he and Kelly might have to release information that would destroy Savage, his family and his business. 

Savage and his wife Jonelyn have been trying for years to get back their daughter Jocelyn, who ran off to be with Kelly shortly after meeting him backstage at a concert when she was only 17. 

They believe that she is being held captive but the singer, but both Kelly and Jocelyn deny this is the case.

Jocelyn (above) and Kelly both deny that she is being held against her will

Jocelyn (above) and Kelly both deny that she is being held against her will

The report, which was first obtained by CBS 46, states that Savage called police shortly after 5am on the day of the incident. 

The responding officer then arrived at the house before 5.45am, which is when Russell called Savage on the phone.

Savage was then able to put the phone on speaker so that the officer could hear everything that was being said by Russell.

‘Don says several times that Timothy is providing Lifetime with false information, and that is he continues supporting the documentary that they (R Kelly / Don) would be forced to release information disproving Don,’ reads the report.

‘Don advised Timothy that the information would ruin him, his reputation, business and family, because it would show him a liar.’

This is actually the second time one of the singer’s managers has threatened Savage, who previously filed a police report against James Mason.

There is now an outstanding warrant for Mason after he failed to respond to police when they asked to question him about the ‘threats’ he made to Savage. 

The Savages first spoke out in an interview with BuzzFeed on in 2017 which contained worrying allegations that Kelly had been holding a handful of young women in cult like conditions and effectively treating them as his sexual slaves for years.

Some former members of his entourage vouched for their concern. Three separate women said they were all forced to subscribe to his rules.

They said they were told when to eat, bathe, sleep and had to perform sexual acts on one another which the singer then recorded.

Bereaved: Timothy Savage (above with wife Jonelyn) was interviewed for the Lifetime series Surviving R Kelly and alleged that the singer was holding his daughter captive

Bereaved: Timothy Savage (above with wife Jonelyn) was interviewed for the Lifetime series Surviving R Kelly and alleged that the singer was holding his daughter captive

The meeting: On January 3, before the show premiered, Kelly's manager Don Russell said it 'would be best for him and his family if the documentary does not air' (Jocelyn Savage on left with her sister and her mother on right after meeting the singer backstage in 2014)

The meeting: On January 3, before the show premiered, Kelly’s manager Don Russell said it ‘would be best for him and his family if the documentary does not air’ (Jocelyn Savage on left with her sister and her mother on right after meeting the singer backstage in 2014)

Report: Savage contacted police, and the responding officer was present when Russell called back with more threats (report above)

Report: Savage contacted police, and the responding officer was present when Russell called back with more threats (report above)

Savage’s mother recalled painstakingly how she was present when her daughter met the singer as an aspiring musician herself after being invited backstage to a concert in 2015.

It’s not clear exactly when Jocelyn went to live with Kelly but her family say they have not seen her since December last year. ‘It was as if she was brainwashed. [She] looked like a prisoner — it was horrible,’ her mother said.

The mother-of-three boasted about meeting the star again in January 2016. On Facebook, she posed with Jocelyn and the star along with one other women, telling friends how they were ‘in the studio’.

In her BuzzFeed interview, she said she thought it would be ‘fine’ for her daughter to spend time with the star if she was there to watch over her.

Jocelyn’s father Timothy believes she is suffering Stockholm Syndrome, a condition which sees hostages grow to love their captors.

The family contacted police after their daughter fled to live with the singer, and they told officers how he was running a ‘cult’.

Police visited the home where they said she was but it was empty. They then tracked her down in Chicago but she said she was fine and wanted to be left alone by her family.

Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee – all former members of Kelly’s entourage – described in detail the sort of treatment endured by young women who find themselves pulled into the singer’s orbit.

A representative for Kelly spoke out at the time about the claims, saying the singer ‘unequivocally denies’ them and said he will ‘work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and to clear his name’.

Earlier, Mack, Jones, and McGee said there are at least six women living in properties rented by the R&B star in Chicago and Atlanta. The ‘guest houses’ where the women are kept are near his home in suburban Atlanta, and his apartment at Trump Tower in Chicago.

‘You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom… [Kelly] is a master at mind control… He is a puppet master,’ Mack, who worked as the singer’s assistant, told the website.

The women, who said the ‘babies’ – as the girls are referred to – are required to call Kelly ‘Daddy’, then ran through a list of people they believe were living either at one of the performer’s properties in Atlanta or his Chicago recording studio last summer.

The first woman mentioned in the article was a 31-year-old ‘den mother’, who is reportedly responsible for ‘training newcomers on how Kelly liked to be pleasured sexually’.

The ‘den mother’ ‘had been best friends since high school’ with the person who was allegedly in the videotape that led to Kelly standing trial on child pornography charges in 2008. 

Mack said many of the young women are sucked in by the singer because they think: ‘This is R. Kelly, I’m going to live a lavish lifestyle’.

In addition to the aforementioned control Kelly has, he allegedly demands the women ask his permission before leaving a room, are forced to wear jogging suits in public in order to keep their figures hidden, have their phones taken and are given new ones that are only allowed to be used to contact him or others approved by him, and have to deal with a ‘burly’ SUV driver parked outside his properties.

Both Mack and Jones said that if any of the women break the ‘rules’, Kelly ‘punishes them physically and verbally’. Jones recounted a time she angered Kelly by ‘being too friendly’ with the male cashier.

‘I got trapped. I had people telling me I was an idiot. But it took me a long time to realize they were right, and I’m talking now because I hope I can help some of these other girls,’ said Jones.

McGee added: ‘R. Kelly is the sweetest person you will ever want to meet. But Robert is the devil.’

 

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