
Years later he would be a superstar, with more than 14 million albums sold and such hits as “I Believe I Can Fly,” which won a Grammy in 1996. Maybe Chicago is not his home anymore.”Ī young Kelly often lugged an electronic keyboard into subway tunnels, playing for the loose change of commuters. He never wanted to leave, but now it looks like he has to. “After that, who’s next? This is a guy who rides around the streets of Chicago, plays basketball here, records his music here. Kelly,” says Derrel McDavid, who grew up on the Southside and is Kelly’s longtime friend and business manager. “There’s Michael Jordan, there’s Oprah Winfrey and there’s R. He will be tried here now too, for allegedly filming a sexual escapade police say took place in the sauna room of his Olympia Field home. With his recording studio in the shadow of the Cabrini Green housing projects, he was on a short list of stars in a big city. Even when he scored more Top 40 hits than any other male solo artist in the 1990s, you could find him most nights playing basketball with old buddies not far from his childhood home. Robert Sylvester Kelly, 35, grew up poor on the Southside but never strayed far.

But, no matter the verdict, Chicago is already struggling with the fall from grace of one of its favored sons. If Kelly is found guilty, his name will be lumped with Jerry Lee Lewis, Gary Glitter, Roman Polanski and other celebrities who have seduced minors. Kelly hung up the phone and returned to the refuge of a friend’s home here.
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He denied the charges in an arraignment June 6 and is free after posting $750,000 bond. The charges stem from a home video that allegedly shows him in sexual liaisons with several partners, including a lurid encounter three years ago with a 14-year-old girl. “Terrible, that’s how I’m doing, just terrible,” rasped the singer, who faces 21 felony counts of child pornography, charges that carry a potential penalty of 15 years in prison. He said he was sitting in front of a television watching Mike Tyson’s boxing career descend to a bloody, pitiful low, but it was a feeble distraction from his own battles against prosecutors and public opinion.

Kelly the most popular R&B singer of his generation. The voice on the other end of the phone was tiny and wounded, nothing like the supple tenor that made R.
