R. Kelly Loses His “Key” to This Louisiana City
Somehow, it took until September of 2021 for this to happen.
When I first stumbled across this news, I basically had two questions. The first being, "What Louisiana city would have possibly given R. Kelly a key?" The second question was, "How the heck did this take so long???" I mean, R. Kelly's reputation has been rightfully ruined for quite some time now, so how did this just happen?
Turns out, R. Kelly once received Baton Rouge's "Key to the City" honor. Believe it or not, it wasn't even that long ago. Earlier today, when i realized R. Kelly was given this honor, I immediately assumed it was given to him back in the day. There's no getting around the fact that R. Kelly was at one time one of the biggest artists in the world, but that was back in the 90's. So, I had just assumed that he was given this special honor in Baton Rouge back in those days. Nope, I was dead-wrong.
He was given the "Key to the City" honor in Baton Rouge just 8 years ago, in 2013. That blows my mind because R Kelly's reputation in 2013 was already completely tarnished. By then, he had been battling sexual misconduct allegations for over a decade.
In 2013, for whatever reason, Baton Rouge Metro Council member Denise Marcelle gave R. Kelly the key. Now, as a member of the LA House of Representatives, she is taking it back.
Apparently, since Marcelle is the one who presented R. Kelly with the honor, she is the only one with the power to rescind it. According to Consequence, she says that she regrets ever giving him the honor in the first place, and as the time of the presentation, she was unaware of the many sexual misconduct allegations.
On Monday of this week, Kelly was found guilty for some serious charges, as his criminal past finally caught up with him. He was found guilty of nine counts of racketeering and sex trafficking after a six-week long trial. He faces up to 100 years in prison.