"Surviving R. Kelly": John Legend says "It didn't feel risky at all" to appear
John Legend tweeted Friday it "didn't feel risky at all" to appear in "Surviving R. Kelly," the Lifetime documentary that details sex abuse allegations over four decades against the singer. "Easy decision," Legend tweeted.
"To everyone telling me how courageous I am for appearing in the doc, it didn't feel risky at all," Legend tweeted. "I believe these women and don't give a f*** about protecting a serial child rapist."
We should all thank my friend @dreamhampton for her very necessary work to create #SurvivingRKelly. These survivors deserved to be lifted up and heard. I hope it gets them closer to some kind of justice.
— John Legend (@johnlegend) January 4, 2019
But executive producer Dream Hampton told the Detroit Free Press it was "incredibly difficult to get people who had collaborated [artistically] with Kelly to come forward."
"We asked Lady Gaga. We asked Erykah Badu. We asked Céline Dion. We asked Jay-Z. We asked Dave Chappelle. (They're) people who have been critical of him. That makes John Legend even more of a hero for me," Hampton said.
In a now-deleted tweet, Questlove said "I always thought Kels was trash. My reason for declining the R. Kelly [documentary] that I support 10000000 percent is I didn't wanna be in the 'good times' portion of the doc, like stanning for his 'genius.' I was asked to talk about his genius," according to The Root.
Chance the Rapper, who collaborated with Kelly on "Somewhere in Paradise" and appeared in Kelly's "Backyard Party" video, said in an interview featured in the final episode of the documentary that working with Kelly was a "mistake."
Chance the Rapper tweeted Saturday the quote was "taken out of context," but "the truth is, any of us who ever ignored the R Kelly stories, or ever believed he was being setup/attacked by the system (as black men often are) were doing so at the determent of black women and girls."
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) January 6, 2019
The documentary features 50 interviews, including accuser Jerhonda Pace; the parents of one of Kelly's alleged victims; Kelly's ex-wife, Andrea Kelly; ex-girlfriend Kitti Jones and brothers Carey and Bruce Kelly.
Legend has spoken out against Kelly before, tweeting support for the Time's Up movement's #MuteRKelly campaign. In July, Kelly mentioned Legend on the song "I Admit," singing that he loved Legend, Steve Harvey and Tom Joyner. "Why would they wanna tear down another brother / Women show black men some love / 'Cause black men, we go through enough," Kelly sings.
Ahead of Thursday's premiere, Kelly, threatened to sue the network, according to TMZ. Kelly's lawyer, Brian Nix, sent a letter to Lifetime alleging the documentary was filled with lies.
The first episode of the documentary had 1.9 million viewers, the highest viewership for the network in two years in all key demographics, according to EW.com. It also had more than 743,000 total interactions across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, according to Nielsen Social Content Ratings.