R. Kelly – Net worth, Money and More
Net Worth : $150 Million
The crowned king of R&B, Robert Sylvester Kelly, a.k.a R.Kelly is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. “Bump n Grind” singer is has an estimated net worth of $150 Million. Born in Chicago, Kelly is considered to be one of the most influential figures in R&B scene. He is widely popular for his singles like ” I believe I Can Fly”, ” If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time”, ” Gotham City” & “Your Body’s Callin”. In his career he has worked and recorded together with top stars like Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, Usher and many more to name a few.
Early Life And Career
Kelly Grew up in Illinois with three siblings. His father left the family when Kelly was still a toddler, thus Kelly’s mom had to support all the three children by her self. His mother has a lovely voice and Kelly inherited his singing talent from his mom, thus she took him to join the church choir. The second motivation for his love for music came from Kelly’s music teacher in high school, Lena McLin. She has talked Kelly into participating in the school talent show with a Stevie Wonder song “Ribbon in the Sky”. The path that Kelly started that night eventually led him to international fame and boosted R. Kelly net worth to millions of dollars. But this success did not come in a day. Before he earned recognition, Kelly used to sing in the streets and metro stations. His first success touched his feet in 1991, When Kelly along with his two friends appeared in “Big Break”, a popular TV show. Kelly went on to win the grand prize of $100,000. Kelly’s first solo album “12 play” was released in 1993 and yielded the singer’s first Number 1 hit, ” Bump N’ Grind” which stayed a record breaking 12 weeks at number 1 on “Hot R&B Singles” chart. His single hits, ” your Body calling” and “Sex Me” both sold 500,000 copies in United States and were certified Gold by RIAA. Following the success of “12 play” Kelly found himself in big demand as a mixer, producer and writer. “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” a popular album was entirely written and produced by Kelly himself. The album peaked at number 18 on the billboard and sold over 3 Million copies in the United States. In 1996, Kelly released one of his most successful singles with “I Believe I Can Fly”, an inspirational song originally released on the soundtrack for the film Space Jam. “I Believe I Can Fly” reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the UK charts for three weeks and won three Grammy Awards in 1998. Rolling Stone magazine named it as the 406th of its top 500 songs of all time. Since the success of Space Jam’s “I Believe I Can Fly”, Kelly gained notoriety for penning songs to popular soundtracks such as Batman & Robin (“Gotham City”) and Life (“Fortunate”). Hits like Chocolate Factory, Happy People/U Saved Me and TP.3 Reloaded added to Kelly’s growing success graph. Kelly released his much awaited album “Black Panties” in 2013.In late 2013, R. Kelly announced with Rap-Up TV that he was planning to release the sequel to the album Black Panties for the summer of 2014.
Legacy
R. Kelly is considered to be one of the most successful R&B artist in the last 25 years. He is one of the best-selling artist in the US with over 40 million albums sold as well as 5th black artist to climb on the top 50 of Rolling Stone magazine. In total Kelly has released over 12 solo studio albums, sold 40 million albums in U.S and over 60 million world wide making him the most successful R&B artist of the 90s. He.He has been named by VIBE the number one musical genius in the past two decades in 2013. Kelly has also produced for the big names likes of Aaliyah, B2K, Changing Faces, Chris Brown, Boo & Gotti and reignited the careers of Ron Isley, The Isley Brothers, Charlie Wilson and more. He has also received 24 Grammy nominations for his own performances, or for work he has produced for other artists, and he’s won three of the awards.
Controversy
All was sailing smooth for Kelly in 90s. the only thing disturbing his track record was the ugly period in the late 90s and early 2000s, when he had brawl at a Lafayette, Louisiana health club, Kelly was placed on a year’s unsupervised probation, after being found guilty of battery. One of the victims, Christopher Mahoney, needed 110 facial stitches. Also that year, 20-year-old Tiffany Hawkins sued Kelly for $10 million and accused him of having sexual relations with her when he was 24 and she 15. Kelly settled the lawsuit in 1998 for $250,000, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. In 2002 a video surfaced showing kelly having sex with an underage girl. later that year Kelly was indicated on 21 counts of having sex with a minor which later reduced to child pornography, seven counts of videotaping the acts, and seven counts of producing child pornography. He finally went to trial in 2008, and at which point he was found not guilty of all charges. Unfortunately, the 6 years between the accusations and the actual trial did a bit of a number on his reputation. In total kelly paid over $7500000 towards legal battles.
Wealth
R. Kelly fills his bank account with many sources, song producing, singing, and writing being few of them. One of the most successful sale for him was ” i believe i can fly” which he sold for over $20 million. To have kelly perform on any concert in US, he charge minimum fee of $300000, and this amount doubles and at times even triples for any trip outside US. Kelly charges over $700000 to perform in Europe, and over $800000 for Africa.
Kelly’s first house was worth $1.3 million which he later sold for $2.9million. he also owned a gigantic $5million mansion in Chicago, later he lost the 11,140sq feet house to JP Morgan in 2011 for defaulting mortgage payments and sold for $6million in 2013. At present kelly owns a studio worth over $1million and a Publishing house .He prefers luxury automobiles and is the proud owner of the Maybach 62S which cost mind boggling $1 million and has featured in a custom-built Zoragy Sylvester. He also owns a licensed Beretta pistol.
Relationships
Apart from having accused of having series of relationships with minor girls, Kelly’s dating history include name of beautiful girls like Deleon Sheffield, Bianca Darrington, Kim l. Dulaney, Tracy Sampson, Aaliyah, Maxinne Daniels. He got married to Andrea Lee in 1996 hey have three children: Two daughters, Joann (born 1998) and Jaya (born 2000), and a son Robert Jr. (born 2002) In 2009 after 13 years of marriage, the couple divorced. Recently R. Kelly and Lady gaga was pictured in compromising position at a night club. presently R&B king is rumored to be in relationship with Lady Gaga.
