After dramatically walking off set during a recent interview, one could be forgiven for assuming R. Kelly isn’t interesting in tackling tricky topics.

However, in a dramatic chat with GQ (presumably to promote new album ‘The Buffet)’, R&B’s Pied Piper sounds off on a number of controversial topics. Including, but not limited to, the Bill Cosby sexual assault scandal, his own childhood abuse, and Aaliyah.

The quotes below are likely to shock…

On Being Abused As A Child By A Female Relative:

“[It happened] every other day, every other week” for multiple years growing up: As far as I can remember, about [age] 7 or 8 to maybe 14, 15. Something like that.

At first, I couldn’t judge it. I remember it feeling weird. I remember feeling ashamed. I remember closing my eyes or keeping my hands over my eyes. I remember those things, but couldn’t judge it one way or the other fully.”

[Over time, as I got older] I remember actually, after a couple of years, looking forward to it sometimes. You know, acting like I didn’t, but did… It teaches you to definitely be sexual earlier than you should have, than you’re supposed to. You know, no different than putting a loaded gun in a kid’s hand––he gonna grow up being a shooter, probably. I think it affects you tremendously when that happens at an early age.

As I’m older, I’ve only learned to forgive it. Was it wrong? Absolutely. But it’s a family member that I love so I would definitely say no to that one. To be honest, even if my mom, I saw her kill somebody, I’m not gonna say, ‘Well, yeah, she definitely should go to jail.’ It’s just something I wouldn’t do.

[Editor’s note:Part of Kelly’s forgiveness comes from his belief that the abuse stemmed from “a generational curse, so to speak, going down through the family. Not just started with her doing that to me.”

On Bill Cosby Allegations:

“Well, my opinion on that is, I don’t know what happened. I’m a fan of Bill Cosby’s from the Bill Cosby show, of course––who’s not?––and for me to give my opinion on something that I have no idea if it’s true or not, all I can say is that it was a long time ago. And when I look on TV and I see the 70-, 80-, 90-year-old ladies talking about what happened when they were 17, 18, 19, there’s something strange about it… If God showed me that they were telling the truth, I would say that’s wrong. I don’t care if it was a zillion years ago. But God would have to do that, because God is the only one can show me that. No man can tell me that. No woman can tell me that. And when you wait 70 years, 50 years, 40 years, to say something that simple, it’s strange. You know why I say that is because it happened to me, and it wasn’t true.”

On Aaliyah:

Kelly speaks at length about his relationship with Aaliyah but when pressed further to talk about their alleged marriage he simply responds, “I did the best I could by writing my book and putting it out there for whoever wants to read about Robert.” (As the interviewer Chris Heath notes: Aaliyah is not mentioned in R. Kelly’s book).

On Being Found Not Guilty:

Regarding the June 2002 trial in which Kelly was indicted for making child pornography (a jury found him not guilty), Kelly gets upset: “When a person is found not guilty, they’re found not guilty. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a murder case, it doesn’t matter what case it is, when they’re found not guilty, they’re not guilty. And I think that a lot of haters out there wanted to see me go down.” So when asked, point blank, if that was him in the video for which he was on trial for child pornography, Kelly pauses. “Because of my lawyers, to this day I cannot have those kind of conversations. Being advised by my lawyers in this.” Even though the trial period is over…. Heath pushes. “Because they could come back to haunt me,” says Kelly. “Things could come back and they can just restart all over again. And I have to protect myself.” {Source}

Speechless. Literally.

Over to you…

Your thoughts?