AFP
The grim milestone on August 25 will fall just a week after testimony in the trial of R. Kelly is due to begin, court proceedings that have evoked Aaliyahโs name over her relationship with her one-time mentor.
For more than a quarter-century Kelly, now 54, has faced lurid accusations including child pornography, sex with minors, operating a sex cult and sexual battery.
And most discussions of the singerโs alleged pattern of abuse begin with his eyebrow-raising partnership with the artist born Aaliyah Haughton, who was 15 when the 27-year-old Kelly produced her debut album โAge Ainโt Nothing But A Number.โย
Mere months later, on August 31, 1994, the pair were married in a union later annulled โ using an Illinois wedding certificate that said the young talent was 18.
A sweeping federal indictment in New Yorkโs Eastern District now says Kelly paid off an Illinois government employee in 1994 to obtain a fake ID to marry an underage girl, identified in court documents as Jane Doe #1, who is widely understood to be Aaliyah.
According to prosecutors, Kelly wanted to wed Aaliyah because they had a sexual relationship and she was a minor, and he believed their marriage could stop her from testifying against him if criminal charges ever were filed.
The bribery count is likely to receive significant attention during the upcoming trial, the first of four separate prosecutions Kelly faces over sexual abuse charges.
But Aaliyah โis one of many examples,โ said Kathy Iandoli, author of the forthcoming biography of the late singer โBaby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah.โ
โWhen the trial happens, weโre going to see how she wasnโt the exception, she was the rule,โ Iandoli said, adding that as it happened, the relationship between Kelly and Aaliyah โwas sanitized, and made to seem like some cutesy love story.โ
โFor the first time the marriage is being seen as exactly what it was: a piece of a very violent puzzle.โ
โToxic masculinityโ
Little about the identities of Kellyโs alleged victims is publicly known. In New York, all six are listed as Jane Does, and several were minors at the time of the crimes.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents three of the alleged victims involved in the New Yorkย case, said her clients are willing to testify โto tell their truthโฆ in the interest of justice.โ
โItโs not going to be easy,โ Allred told AFP. โBut theyโre very courageous.โย
For many activists the reckoning for Kelly, a man long trailed by sex abuse accusations, is ages overdue.
Many attribute the impunity to his celebrity, and some others also cite the silencing of Black women whose accusations were dismissed.
โActivists, mostly Black women activists, have been calling for his accountability for decades,โ Kenyette Barnes, who co-founded the #MuteRKelly movement, told AFP.ย
She said the campaign โmade us revisit a conversation that many of us โ just because of our apathy towards the sexual violence of Black girls โ made a joke, or ignored.โ
Women of color experience sexual assault at higher rates than white women, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention โ and are statistically less likely to report abuse than white women out of fear or desire to protect their communities.
But Barnes pointed to a shift in that thinking, saying that racism against Black men does not negate issues of โtoxic masculinityโ within Black communities: โYou can both be a victim of one form of oppression, and a perpetrator of another,โ she said.
โBlack womanists and feminists have stepped up and said enough is enough; weโre no longer going to protect the Black patriarchy at the expense of our gender violence.โ
โSurvivorโ
Lawyer Allred said the prosecution of Kelly โis a very significant warning for other celebrities, who may be thinking of or who have used their celebrity statusโฆ to commit crimes against either minors or adult women.โย
โI do think that it is going to be a significant teaching moment,โ she said.
For writer Iandoli, the timing of the trial with the 20th anniversary of Aaliyahโs passing โis actually kind of terribleโ โ as it further intertwines the R&B artistโs name with that of her alleged abuser.
And because she died in a plane crash, Aaliyah โwas never given the title of survivor,โ Iandoli said.
โI hope that after this whole legal situation finishes, thatโs the title we give her.โ