Supreme Court Rejects R. Kelly Appeal Petition — As the Disgraced Singer’s Ex-Wife Promises to ‘Set So Many Free’ With a New Tell-All Book

Back in July, R. Kelly petitioned the Supreme Court to toss a portion of his sex crime convictions. Now, a little over two months later, the nation’s highest court has rejected the appeal.

The Supreme Court just recently denied the disgraced singer’s certiorari petition alongside a number of others.

As we noted over the summer, R. Kelly is serving multiple sentences: 30 years in connection with a federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial in New York as well as a simultaneous 20-year sentence stemming from federal child sex abuse charges brought in Chicago in 2022.

This Supreme Court appeal pertained specifically to the latter, which resulted from a conviction under 2003’s PROTECT Act.

In part, that federal law extended the statute of limitations for child abuse. But because the 57-year-old’s alleged crimes occurred in the 1990s, well before PROTECT became law, his attorneys argued that the “charges were brought outside the applicable statute of limitations.”

Despite the contention, the Supreme Court has made clear its disinclination to review the statute of limitations question here.

While the corresponding rejection doesn’t elaborate on the reasons behind the decision, the development seemingly marks the end of the review-petition push for the R. Kelly crimes tried in Chicago.

However, it certainly doesn’t mark the end of the broader saga.

In August, a New York judge ordered Universal Music Publishing Group to pay about $500,000 in R. Kelly royalties directly to victims of the three-time Grammy winner.

Following the point to its logical conclusion, the artist’s works remain live on Spotify (where he has nearly five million monthly listeners) and other platforms despite the decidedly serious convictions at hand.

Closer to the present, Andrea Kelly, R. Kelly’s ex-wife, announced over the weekend that she’d written a tell-all entitled Under the Red Carpet. Scheduled to release in late December, the “book is going to set so many free,” according to the author, whose trailer for the project rather prominently features multiple clips and photos of Diddy as well.

“For years people have spoken on my life without knowing ANYTHING about me,” wrote 50-year-old Andrea, who was married to R. Kelly between 1996 and 2009 but still uses his last name.

“How crazy is it to speak on someone you NEVER MET or had a conversation with as FACT.

Well, the time has come to speak without fear! No more forcing a smile to get thru the pain of being me.

No more ‘be nice’ to please an unpleasant world.”