Maybe his times of trouble seem so far behind him that he can't see any way they can hurt him now. (Though of course, not everyone who chooses to be silent is hiding something.) Maybe, whatever the reason for his reticence, he has come to realize that it is doing him more harm than good. The simplest reason, of course, would be that he's innocent of anything he has ever been accused of-in that case the mystery would be why he has sidestepped real conversations for so long. As yet, I'm not really sure why he's changed his mind. Kelly have been brief, and restrictions have often been imposed, fences rung around the subjects he wouldn't discuss. When my mom would be on the highway, I would always look at the Sears Tower as: That's where I want to go, that's where I want to be.”įor many years now, most interviews with R. I wanted to be as strong as the Sears Tower feels. I wanted to be on top of the Sears Tower.

In what way? “In my life, I wanted to feel tall. The tower-which was actually renamed the Willis Tower in 2009, though many Chicagoans, including Kelly, still refer to it by its original name-would also come to play a complicated role in the psychic geography of the 48-year-old man sitting up here now, looking down upon the city and to Lake Michigan beyond. It was to be called the Sears Tower, and for nearly 25 years it would be the tallest building in the world. When Robert Kelly was 3 years old, growing up poor with a single mother on Chicago's South Side, construction started on a building a few miles away in the center of town. The first meeting was on the ninety-ninth floor of the Sears Tower. The second and third meetings were at his favorite cigar bar. We met three times over three days in his hometown of Chicago. Kelly agreed to speak about his whole life without restrictions.

He was eventually acquitted of that charge, and his career has continued uninterrupted, but for the most part he has evaded even the most basic questions that might help people understand what is true about him.įor this story, R. It is also the story of a man who has been publicly accused of multiple sexual offenses with underage women, and who stood trial for making child pornography. It is a story about the difficult places he came from and the ways they may, or may not, have shaped who he has become. It is a story about the remarkable, but also very strange, pop talent he has.

This is a story about an entertainer named R.

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