“Is this camera on me?”
R. Kelly’s line, in the midst of his 80-minute interview with CBS’ Gayle King about his charges of sexual abuse, was the opening lyric of one of the most bizarre and unhinged performances of the R&B; singer’s career.
He shrieked into the camera: “You’re killing me, man!” He smacked his fist into his palm. He beat his chest. He paced and stabbed the air and seemed as if he might lose physical control. (King later said that she didn’t worry that the singer would harm her, but she thought that “I might get accidentally clobbered.”)
He kept on rambling even as his handlers tried to soothe him and reapplied his makeup, as if administering to a boxer between rounds.
The obvious question, after Kelly’s Tuesday meltdown replayed for days, finally becoming a CBS prime time special Friday night, was: Why would he agree to this? How could he imagine this might possibly help him?
But you can infer the motivation from that “Is this camera on me?” Whether consciously or by habit, Kelly saw the chance to turn an interview into a solo show.
This year, the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which laid out an extensive case that Kelly preyed upon women and underage girls, showed how he used the intimate investment of fandom to escape consequences. (Kelly has denied all sexual abuse allegations.)
There was an audience out there — fans who had heard his songs at weddings and graduations — and if he could summon up a barnburner of emotion, maybe he could get the crowd on his side one more time.
He believed he could flee.
But a network-TV interview while you’re facing criminal charges is not the same as performing a tribute ballad at Whitney Houston’s funeral. (Last month in Chicago, Kelly was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse; he has pleaded not guilty.)
The raging, self-pitying R. Kelly on this stage only recalled the threatening, controlling R. Kelly described in “Surviving,” which CBS’ special drew heavily on (including an interview with its producer Dream Hampton).
Kelly’s breakdown got most of the attention, but we shouldn’t overlook what King did. Rather than match his volume, she addressed Kelly, whose first name is Robert, calmly and firmly, the way you would a tantrum: “Robert. Robert.”
Just as important, she recognized that Kelly was trying to use the interview to claim a soapbox. “Robert, we have to have a conversation,” she said, as he continued to hold forth, looking past her into the lens. “I don’t want you just ranting at the camera.”
Her impassive body language said it all. She was not going to engage on his level; he would have to come to hers. She was not going to indulge another man talking over and around and to the side of her, trying to shout and aggress and ugly-cry his way out of trouble.
The editing of the segment underscored her point, cutting to a longer-range side view to deny Kelly the direct-to-camera soliloquy he was trying to have. The image of him, shot from a low angle, aggrieved and slashing the air, revealed Kelly’s desperate isolation like a portrait tableau.
Friday’s special didn’t reveal new moments from the interview as stunning as the ones already replayed all week. (In one new clip, Kelly explained his visit to McDonald’s after posting bail, offering perhaps the least-wanted endorsement in America: “When it comes to McDonald’s that M stands for Mom.”)
It also excerpted King’s earlier interview with two women, Azriel Clary and Joycelyn Savage, who denied that Kelly was keeping them captive in his home — though, as King noted, Kelly was present for the entire interview, coughing loudly and making his presence known.
Maybe more valuable, the special provided context for the viral clips: the history of the abuse and “sex cult” charges against Kelly; interviews with accusers and their family members; background from experts and Chicago music journalist Jim DeRogatis, who pursued the case for two decades.
These sections, as “Surviving” did at greater length, got at the question of how an accused abuser could escape consequences for so long.
But you could also look to Kelly’s all-too-familiar responses in the interview. The multiple, detailed accusations, he said, were “rumor,” the women were “lying” and “scorned.” His fury may have been jaw-dropping — but all this had worked for him, and other men, before. Last fall, his future clouded by a sexual assault charge, Brett Kavanaugh roared his way onto the Supreme Court on national TV.
The faceoff between the wrathful Kelly and the stoic King was a clash of temperaments. But it was also a collision of eras: the moment of the reckoning coming face-to-face with decades of impunity. At one point, Kelly asked about his accusers, “Why now?”
“Because we’re in a different time where women are speaking out,” King said.
The times may have caught up with R. Kelly. Maybe his loss of control was a recognition of that. But at other times, he spoke like he believed he had history on his side. “I guarantee you,” he told King, “that I’m going to come out of this like I did before.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.