R. Kelly was released from a Cook County jail on bail today after being charged last week with sexually assaulting one woman and three underage girls in Illinois. The first stop on Kelly’s drive home was the flagship McDonald’s in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, where he allegedly met a high school girl on her prom night in 1998 whom he would later impregnate and force to have an abortion, according to a 2002 lawsuit that Kelly settled out of court. The singer would have been 31 on the prom night in question. Today he is 52.
R. Kelly’s former studio engineer James Lee said in last year’s BBC documentary R Kelly: Sex, Girls and Videotapes that the singer frequently picked up young women from the fast food chain. “He would occasionally go to this McDonald’s and come back to the studio with a girl or two,” Lee said. “Going to McDonald’s to pick up chicks. That’s what a 17-year-old does.”
The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Nader Issa, one of several journalists trailing Kelly’s drive away from jail on Monday, reports that Kelly’s second stop on his trip was a cigar lounge in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary—two women who currently live with Kelly and whose parents have claimed they’re being held against their will without contact to family members or friends—appeared to enter the lounge after Kelly, Issa reports.
Kelly faces 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. His next court date is scheduled for March 22. View images of the McDonald’s scene, as well as Lee’s interview about Kelly picking up girls there, below.
.@rkelly just wrapped up eating at @McDonaldsCorp with his entourage fresh out of jail. As he was leaving a fan was telling the singer she loves him. pic.twitter.com/KTbBuu83af
— Will Jones (@WillABC7) February 26, 2019
R. Kelly's first stop after getting out of jail is the McDonald's in River North. Fans are playing his music in the parking lot. pic.twitter.com/0fPb4g4w43
— Nader Issa (@NaderDIssa) February 26, 2019
WATCH: James Lee talks to @BenjaminZand about R Kelly’s visits to McDonalds to pick up girls. R Kelly: Sex, Girls & Videotapes is available on @BBCThree now https://t.co/LNu2j2fihY pic.twitter.com/8LUFnapnER
— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) March 28, 2018
