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R. Kelly Slams Time’s Up Movement for ‘Attempted Public Lynching’

The singer claimed the collective “rushed to judgement without the facts.”

R. Kelly responded to the Time’s Up campaign’s call for a boycott against the singer’s music, saying the announcement is an “attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture,” according to BuzzFeed News. “R. Kelly supports the pro-women goals of the Time’s Up movement. We understand criticizing a famous artist is a good way to draw attention to those goals—and in this case, it is unjust and off-target,” his spokesperson said in a statement. Kelly’s representatives said Time’s Up, a Hollywood collective that’s fighting against sexual harassment in various industries, “rushed to judgement without the facts” and failed to talk to women who support their client. The R&B singer has been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct over the years. In his response to Time’s Up, Kelly also said his music should never be silenced, adding that “black men and women have been lynched for having sex or for being accused of it.”