R. Kelly is an American singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer. R Kelly now has a $2 million negative net worth. Kelly’s net worth at his height was probably in the tens of millions and might have even reached $100 million.
The singer lost all of his money and had a lot of legal issues. When Kelly was attempting to leave jail in April 2020, he admitted to the judge that he owed the IRS alone around $1.9 million.
R Kelly, actual name Robert Kelly, was a well-known and wealthy R&B artist in the 1990s and early 2000s before receiving a 30-year term for racketeering and sex trafficking.
But due of legal issues, R Kelly’s personal wealth has decreased over time. So how did he go from being one of America’s most well-known entertainers to being insolvent?
Early Life and Career
Robert Sylvester Kelly was born on the south side of Chicago on January 8, 1967. He dropped out of high school to perform in the subway. His big break came when he took home a $100,000 prize from the talent competition Big Break. In 1991, Kelly secured a record deal with Jive Records, and in 1993, his group Public Announcement put out the album “Born into the 90s.”
“12 Play,” R. Kelly’s debut solo album, was released in November 1993. Eventually, the record received a six-time platinum certification. The song “Bump n’ Grind” was primarily to blame for this.
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Around the same time, Kelly started earning a living by producing music for other artists. All of the tracks on Aaliyah’s debut pop album were written and produced by him.
His album “R. Kelly” sold 4 million copies in 1995. His song “I Believe I Can Fly” quickly reached the top of the charts and won three Grammys. In the 2000s, Kelly produced several platinum albums as well as excerpts from his hip-hop opera Trapped in the Closet. The final piece of was eventually made public in the spring of 2010.
R. Kelly has released 14 studio albums, five song collections, and three albums in collaboration with other musicians. Kelly has received numerous honors, including numerous Billboard awards, a BET award, and multiple American Music Awards. His most recent albums are “The Buffet” and “Black Panties.” In 2013 and 2015, respectively, they were released. He also took part in 12 official world tours between 1994 and 2013.
R Kelly’s Net Worth
R Kelly, according to Celebrity Net Worth, has a negative net worth of roughly $2 million. It was discovered in 2020 that Kelly owes the IRS more than $1.9 million.
When Kelly was at the pinnacle of his game, his net worth was probably approximately $100 million.
R. Kelly was found guilty of nine crimes in 2021, including racketeering involving six claimed victims, bribery, forced labor, kidnapping, child exploitation, and interstate sexual trafficking.
He received a 30-year prison sentence in June 2022.
How did R Kelly get bankrupt and lose everything?
R. Kelly’s net worth might have easily ranged from $50 to $100 million if he hadn’t run into legal issues. Over the years, Kelly is alleged to have spent tens of millions of dollars settling scores of cases brought by women who claimed he had abused them. Kelly’s divorce from Andrea Lee, his spouse from 1996 to 2009, is alleged to have cost him a significant portion of his fortune. Those were his career’s most prosperous years.
It was revealed in 2012 that Kelly owed $5 million in back taxes after failing to file for seven years. He lost his Chicago residence in 2013 after failing to make his mortgage payments since 2010. Because he owing more than $30,000 in unpaid rent and fees, he was forced out of two properties in the Atlanta region in 2018. He had been renting a home in Chicago’s Trump Tower for the previous few years.
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R. Kelly released a 19-minute song on Spotify in July 2018 where he discussed several of the allegations made against him. In this song, Kelly claimed that she was in debt and had to go on tour “simply to pay the rent.” Additionally, he claims that in order to settle his debts, he once owed the IRS $20 million and had to borrow a few million dollars from his record company.
His financial difficulties are made worse by the fact that he is unable to tour in many foreign nations due to his controversies, and that demonstrations frequently cause his U.S. tours to be canceled. Additionally, his tracks are no longer included in the public playlists created by Spotify and other streaming platforms. His songs are remain playable on Spotify from personal accounts, but they won’t appear on any of the company’s radio channels or publicly accessible playlists like Discover Weekly.
