Lady Gaga Refuses To Collaborate With R. Kelly

Say it isn’t so. Lady Gaga apologizes for ever collaborating with R. Kelly during a dark time in her life and is removing “Do What U Want,” the 2013 single from iTunes and streaming services.

The “Bad Romance” singer posted via Twitter (referring to the women who spoke out against R. Kelly in the new Surviving R. Kelly Documentary series), “I stand behind these women 1000%, believe them, know they are suffering and in pain, and feel strongly that their voices should be heard and taken seriously.” Gaga continues to say, “I’m sorry, both for my poor judgement when I was young, and for not speaking out sooner.” Now, she vows to never collaborate with R. Kelly again.

In the past Gaga and Kelly performed the sexually explicit song on Saturday Night Live and at the American Music Awards.

Gaga wrote, “As a victim of sexual assault myself, I made both the song and the video at a dark time in my life, my intention was to create something extremely defiant and provocative because I was angry and still hadn’t processed the trauma that had occurred in my own life. The song is called ‘Do What U Want (With My Body),’ I think it’s clear how explicitly twisted my thinking was at the time. If I could go back and have a talk to my younger self, I’d tell her to go through the therapy I have since then, so that I can understand the confused post-traumatic state that I was in—or if therapy was not available to me or anyone in my situation—to seek help, and speak as openly and honestly as possible about what we’ve been through."

The documentary series includes interviews with musical artists like Chance the Rapper and John Legend who also regret collaborating with R. Kelly, saying, it “was a mistake” to collaborate with R. Kelly in 2015’s “Somewhere in Paradise.”

R. Kelly is indeed an incredible artist and nobody can take that away from him, but that doesn’t excuse his background of sexual harassment against women. While R. Kelly has been known for defending himself over the years with similar cases, it is unclear on if the musical artists only continued to work with him to skyrocket their career.

It may be true that Gaga does feel sorry for the sexually abused survivors of R. Kelly, but she only addressed the issue with a social media apology after she was criticized by fans as well as internet trolls. Did Gaga feel like talking about R. Kelly would do more damage to his career or did she just want to protect her own legacy?

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/09/entertainment/lady-gaga-r-kelly/index.html.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/lady-gaga-apologizes- for-r-kelly-collaboration-calls-sexual-assault-allegations-horrifying.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/lady-gaga-wants-to-take-back-her-r-kelly-collaboration.html.