R. Kelly has endured a boatload of bad publicity over the past several months and the R&B megastar is under fire yet again — this time for poking fun at an autistic fan who he accused of “smoking Percocet.”
R. Kelly bullied an autistic fan into singing one of his songs, then ridiculed him and accused him of being high on Percocet — now the singer might have a lawsuit on his hands.
Kelly has since offered an apology and also provided an explanation for his questionable interaction with the man outside a Hollywood nightclub. He revealed he had no idea the man, who Kelly says was “too close” at times, had autism and instead thought he was drunk.
“Now people wanna say I’m making fun of people with autism,” Kelly said in an Instagram video uploaded on Tuesday (November 14). “Totally not true. I was coming from a club the other night. And I was tipsy … and it was a guy coming up to me like a fan. Didn’t seem like he had autism to me at all. And I apologize to him if he did, but he appeared drunk to me.”
Later in the video, Kelly questioned why negativity seems to follow him in the media. He also claims that people are intent on destroying his career.
“But the point is … I can’t do anything without people saying something negative about me,” he said. “Gave a guy $100 on the streets and the next morning they say I gave him $3. It’s just too much guys. Let me do my work. It’s obviously people trying to blackball me and destroy my career. I understand that.”
The original video shows the autistic man singing along to “I Believe I Can Fly” and Kelly then joining him in singing the song, but with some adjustments to the lyrics.
“I believe that you high. I believe that you touching the sky. Smoking on that Percocet,” R. Kelly sang.
