Lifetime returns to R. Kelly with a new powerful series
NEW YORK (AP) — Few TV documentary series can boast having a more powerful real world impact than “Surviving R. Kelly.”
Though allegations of sexual abuse against minors followed R&B superstar R. Kelly for years, it was a six-part series aired by Lifetime last January featuring testimonials by alleged survivors that sparked new attention from authorities.
A year later, Lifetime is readying a follow-up series, “ Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning, ” with one major difference: this time, R. Kelly will be behind bars when it airs.
Brie Miranda Bryant, senior vice president of unscripted development at Lifetime, said the new series takes a wider and deeper look at some of the issues the first one raised. The first had 54 interviews; the follow-up has almost 70.
“It’s not really about R. Kelly. It’s about sexual violence against women in general and how we change that dialogue,” she said.
“Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning” will premiere Thursday on Lifetime. The six-hour series will run for two hours a night for three consecutive nights, concluding Saturday.
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One new voice is Jimmy Maynes, a veteran artist manager and former Jive Record executive who represents artists including Salt-N-Pepa. That groundbreaking hip-hop group toured with R. Kelly and Maynes was initially approached by the documentary makers about what he witnessed on the road.
“I had not physically seen R. Kelly with any underage children, however I did feel like there was a high probability that things had been going on behind closed doors that I would not have approved of,” Maynes said.
While not a direct witness, Maynes does talk about being asked by Jive Records in 2002 to go to Chicago and buy up all the VHS and DVDs he could find that allegedly showed R. Kelly engaging in sexual acts with an underage girl. He said he later confronted the superstar, who claimed the man in the video was his twin brother. He has no twin.
Maynes also offers a critical look at the music industry, which he argues creates a culture that gives superstars like R. Kelly unquestioned authority. In an interview with The Associated Press, he connected R. Kelly to other self-destructive superstars like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Prince.
