Image: APA/AFP/POOL/ANTONIO PEREZ
As the online portal “TMZ” reported on Friday (local time) with reference to court documents viewed, a court in New York awarded them amounts totaling 10.5 million US dollars (approx. 9.7 million euros). Both the singer and his ex-manager have been sued after a canceled showing of the documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
The women, who appeared in the documentary as the former pop star’s abuse victims, said they suffered additional traumatic damage when the preview screening in New York in December 2018 had to be stopped after death threats were received against those present. The documentary, which aired in early January 2019, summarizes the allegations against Kelly. The “I Believe I Can Fly” singer is now serving a 30-year sentence after rulings in Chicago and New York courts on charges of sex with a minor and production of child pornography.
With more than 50 million albums sold and various important awards, the Chicago-born musician Robert Sylvester Kelly was one of the most successful musicians of the late 20th century. The first allegations were made in 1994, but the pop titan seemed unassailable for a long time. That changed at the latest with the “Surviving” documentary.
According to US media, a court in New York had already decided on Wednesday that Kelly’s music label Universal had to pay royalties of more than half a million US dollars to Kelly’s victims – as a penalty and to cover their costs from one of the court proceedings settle Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, who has appealed all of the verdicts, told Billboard magazine she is fighting to get the royalties returned to her client.
Source: Nachrichten
