R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years

Robert Sylvester Kelly, the R&B icon and celebrity pedophile who married his own underage protegé and was filmed urinating on a 13-year-old girl, was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment today. Kelly was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021, ending years of legal efforts to nail him for something or other. TMZ:

The disgraced singer was in the federal courthouse Wednesday in Brooklyn when Judge Ann M. Donnelly announced his sentence … bringing a close to one of the U.S. Attorney's Office's highest-profile criminal prosecutions in years.

Kelly lived in a strange liminal celebrity space after he beat the urine tape charge, where everyone knew what he was, he knew that everyone knew what he was, and yet he was free to pursue his interests. One of the strangest things on the internet is video of a 2011 concert he performed in Ethiopia in which he sings precise instructions on how to be sex trafficked by him.