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R. Kelly Has Another Bad Day (Except For Spotify)

R. Kelly
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NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) R. Kelly has been sued for sexual assault amid several weeks of bad press.

At press time, Kelly was being sued for sexual assault by Faith Rodgers, who claimed they met in March of last year when she was 19 and a couple months later Kelly flew her to NYC for a concert, according to TMZ.  Afterward, Rodgers claims Kelly “bombarded” her hotel room and initiated “unwanted sexual contact” including oral and vaginal intercourse.  She says she obtained herpes from Kelly and that they dated for a year where he mentally, verbally and sexually abused her, locking her in rooms, studios and cars, according to court documents obtained by TMZ.  Her attorney told TMZ that Kelly is the person who secretly recorded a phone conversation with him attempting to get him to confess to giving her the STD – a story that TMZ ran May 5.

Meanwhile, despite Spotify’s efforts to not promote R. Kelly’s music, the R&B singer’s streaming numbers on the service remain unchanged.

Spotify announced it had removed Kelly’s music from its playlists, citing a new policy on hate content and hateful conduct; Kelly has been accused recently of unseemly behavior, from having sex slaves to dating underage girls. However, a week after the policy was put in place, Kelly’s streaming numbers actually rose from a weekly average of 6,584,000 to 6,676,000, according to Nielsen Music.

Kelly’s streaming numbers have risen steadily over the last two years, according to the Associated Press. In 2016, he averaged 4,709,000 weekly streams and, so far in 2018, he is averaging 6,674,000 weekly streams.

Despite the accusations of sexual abuse by several women, the music star does not face any criminal charges.

Shaunna Thomas, cofounder of women’s advocacy group UltraViolet that endorses Spotify’s policy, said the point is to stop promoting his music, not to stop people from listening to it.

“Frankly it’s not important in this context whether people are listening to his music or not, what’s important is that Spotify is holding itself to the standard that they themselves established and they live up to it,” Thomas told the AP.

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