R Kelly's Net Worth is $1 Million

There are a lot of people who will be most familiar with R. Kelly because of his music and his influence on his particular genre of music. However, there are also a lot of people who will be most familiar with him because of the various scandals that he has become embroiled in.

The latest example being the recent Lifetime docuseries that featured multiple women accusing him of sexual abuse and other misdeeds. And currently, Kelly will be likely be living the rest of his life in jail. It is believed that these occurrences are the reason that Kelly’s current net worth is estimated to be around $1 million.

How Did R. Kelly’s Net Worth Plummet to $1 Million?

For starters, it should be noted that Kelly build his wealth by being a pretty successful singer and songwriter. In short, he is one of the best-selling musicians out there, so much so that he is considered to be the single most successful R&B male artist of the 1990s with tens of millions of copies sold over the course of his career.

Moreover, Kelly has worked with a wide range of other artists, whether by writing for them, producing for them, or remixing for them. Combined, these have made him one of the most influential figures in hip hop and contemporary R&B, which is further supported by numerous awards and accolades for his music.

Based on this, it seems safe to say that most of Kelly’s wealth was built up through his music and music-related activities. Certainly, he is likely to have had other sources of income over the course of his career as well, but there can be no doubt about music and music-related activities being his chief earner.

However, those who are curious about how Kelly’s net worth has plummeted to $1 million in spite of the fact that he is still making music on a regular basis should know that he has been at the center of scandals and worse for a very, very long time.

A History of Inappropriate Relations

For starters, there was the time when Kelly married Aaliyah when he was 27 and she was 15 in 1994. Kelly’s tour manager Demetrius Smith has stated that he made the process possible by providing documents for Aaliyah that claimed that her age was 18.

Eventually, Aaliyah’s family managed to get the marriage annulled by a Michigan judge, though both Kelly and Aaliyah went on to deny that the marriage had ever taken place in spite of actions such as Aaliyah’s filing of a lawsuit to have the marriage records expunged that contradict their claims.

Later in February of 2002, a video surfaced showing Kelly having sex with as well as urinating upon an underage girl. By June of 2002, Kelly had been arrested while police officers turned up images of Kelly “engaged in sexual conduct” with an underage girl on a camera, who one newspaper reported to have shown up on the video as well.

However, some of the resulting charges were dropped because of a lack of probable cause for the search warrants, while Kelly was found not guilty on the rest when the matter went to court.

Additional Allegations

Later still in 2017 and 2018, more allegations started coming out. This time, there are claims from parents that Kelly is holding their daughters in an abusive cult.

Moreover, The Washington Post has published an article claiming that executives in the music industry were aware of Kelly’s sexually abusive behavior but were fine with overlooking it because of Kelly’s musical success, which includes the allegation that executives were even complicit in the sex cult allegations by requiring employees working at the studio where Kelly was working to sign non-disclosure agreements as well as not enter certain rooms where it is believed that the women were kept.

With that said, none of these reports have had the same impact as the docuseries Surviving R. Kelly, which prompted further allegations of sexual abuse by Kelly as well as a wide range of parties including his record label cutting ties with him.

Final Thoughts On R Kelly’s Net Worth

Summed up, it is perhaps unsurprising to learn that there are sources claiming that Kelly’s net worth has plummeted to $1 million because of these legal issues that have been coming up since the 1990s. Moreover, considering recent events, it seems likely that Kelly’s financial position won’t be improving anytime soon.

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