R. Kelly’s scheduled performance in Chicago on May 5 for the UIC Pavilion’s Pre-Mother’s Day Love Jam has been cancelled — thanks in part to the #MuteRKelly campaign.
On Sunday, R. Kelly took to social media to apologize to his fans for the cancellation.
“First of all, I want to apologize to all of my fans in Chicago, and basically all around the world wherever I’m performing at and they canceled me,” he said. “I don’t know why they canceled the show. I never heard of a show being canceled because of rumors, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. So I apologize to you guys and in the meantime, I’m going to try to get to the bottom line of it, you know, as far as my lawyers are concerned, and see exactly what happened and why I was canceled.”
The May 5 show would’ve been his first in Chicago since the ‘sex cult’ allegations were published last July.
A petition signed by 1,300 students at the University of Illinois in Chicago called for the cancellation of R. Kelly’s concert on May 5, citing “overwhelming public evidence of [Kelly’s] history of sexual misconduct.” The letter, co-written by Natalie Bennett of the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center at UIC, was to be sent to UIC Chancellor Michael Amiridis upon reaching 1,500 signatures.
With Time’s Up joining the #MuteRKelly campaign, we expect several (if not all) of R. Kelly’s shows to be cancelled in the coming weeks.
Today we join the call to #MuteRKelly and insist on safety & dignity for all women. We demand appropriate investigations and inquiries into the allegations of R. Kelly’s abuse made by women of color & their families for over two decades now. #WOC #TIMESUPhttps://t.co/CG7Y5ZmKyR
— kerry washington (@kerrywashington) April 30, 2018
