R. Kelly’s Spotify Streams Are Way Up, But His Chances of Staying Out of Prison Are Way Down After ‘Surviving R. Kelly’

Last week, Lifetime aired a schlocky six part docu-series called Surviving R. Kelly that was about, well, all the allegations about R. Kelly, from being a pedophile to having a sex cult. It turns out that having all these women recount their treatment at the hands of Kelly, which is certainly poor even if it doesn’t turn out to be criminal, has increased his popularity on Spotify.

After the first night of the three-night, six part doc aired, a Spotify rep told The Blast that R Kelly’s songs had a 16% bump in streams, something that hardly seems to be a coincidence.

People are going to listen to what they want to listen to. People have spent the past year and a half or so greatly overestimating the amount that someone’s bad behavior turns people off from their art. The answer for most people is “not at all.” You know why? To some degree we’re all horrible people, and the more horrible we are the more likely we’re a successful artist.

Of course, there’s bad news for R Kelly, too. It turns out that when there’s a six hour documentary on you being a sexual predator on basic cable, the D.A. will be embarrassed enough to investigate a little, because CNN reported that some of the victims have been contacted in relation to the show.

Gerald Griggs, an attorney for the family of Joycelyn Savage, one of the women featured in “Surviving R. Kelly,” said the Fulton County District Attorney reached out to Griggs a few days ago, after the show aired.

Griggs said the Fulton County DA is conducting an investigation into Kelly.

That’s in Georgia, but he isn’t the only DA investigating Kelly.

A Chicago prosecutor said on Tuesday that her office has been in touch with two families related to allegations against Kelly since the series aired.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx urged potential victims or witnesses to speak to police.

That closet he was trapped in is going to look real good compared to a prison cell. But if they didn’t lock him up for peeing on a 13-year-old on video, I doubt anything is going to actually stick.