Source: Chicago Tribune / Getty
The hits just keep on coming for R. Kelly but not in the way he’s accustomed to.
After being found guilty by a jury of his peers of sex trafficking last week in New York City, Bloomberg is now reporting that R. Kelly’s YouTube channels have been taken down now that he’s a convicted sex offender. A week after Kelly was finally held accountable for his crimes against countless young women, YouTube banned both R. Kelly TV and R. Kelly Vevo from its video platform.
“We can confirm that we have terminated two channels linked to R. Kelly in accordance with our creator responsibility guidelines,” a spokesperson for YouTube stated. YouTube’s Head of Legal, Nicole Alston added “Egregious actions committed by R. Kelly warrant penalties beyond standard enforcement measures due to a potential to cause widespread harm.”
While many will be happy that his channels are offline, others might still have an issue with the fact that his music will still be available to listen to as his catalogue is still very much part of YouTube’s music library. That’s something that R. Kelly couldn’t enjoy at Spotify who removed his entire discographjy from their services in 2018 when Kelly’s world began to fall apart once every disturbing thing he did began to come to light.
Whether or not YouTube will follow suit is anyone’s guess, but if they do it’ll only be a matter of time until R. Kelly fans will have to start pulling out CD’s, cassette tapes, and vinyl to get their fill of toxic music that now sounds like it was full of hidden pedophilic message at times, allegedly.
Yes, it’s gotten to that point where if we see anyone grooving too hard to R. Kelly tunes, they’re getting the side-eye of suspicion. Just sayin.’
