R. Kelly has pushed back against a $10.5 million judgment made against him in a lawsuit because he apparently couldn’t read it.
R. Kelly Doesn’t Think He’s Responsible for $10.5 Million Lawsuit
On Tuesday (Jan. 16), the disgraced R&B singer—who is currently serving out his sentence on sex trafficking and sex abuse charges in North Carolina—said that he wasn’t aware of a $10.5 million lawsuit he lost back in August of 2023, according to legal documents obtained by TMZ.
The lawsuit was filed by six women, who sued Kells and his former manager Donnell Russell for trying to shutter a December 2018 screening of the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries in a New York City theater. The women claimed that Russell went so far as to call in a mass shooting threat to the theater.
The legal docs reportedly say that Kelly claimed to be unaware of the suit due to the numerous lawsuits and criminal cases he’s juggling. R. Kelly also said he switched legal teams, and that the suit might have gotten lost in the shuffle. Additionally, he argued that he can’t even read past a grade level, and relies entirely on his attorneys to communicate lawsuits to him.
In regards to the lawsuit itself, Kelly argued Donnell Russell was never his manager. Kelly said he was unaware of the mass shooting threat made by Russell, and that if he did try to cancel the screening, “he did that for his own reasons.”
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R. Kelly’s Attorneys Claim R&B Singer Can’t Read
This surprisingly isn’t the first time Kells has said he can’t read. Back in 2019, as Kelly’s criminal cases began to snowball, the R&B singer skipped a court hearing that resulted in him losing a civil lawsuit. The suit was filed by an alleged underage victim of Kelly’s sexual abuse. His attorneys at the time, Zaid Abdallah and Raed Shalabi, responded to the judgment by reportedly claiming in legal documents that R. Kelly couldn’t read and that’s why he missed the hearing. They also said he was in California’s Cook County Jail at the time.
As reported by TMZ, the documents claimed Kelly, “suffers from a learning disability that adversely affects his ability to read … in essence he cannot.”
Kelly’s legal team asked the court to vacate the decision as a result.
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