{"id":793090,"date":"2019-02-15T07:48:50","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T14:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=795311"},"modified":"2019-02-15T07:48:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T14:48:50","slug":"german-venue-defends-decision-to-book-r-kelly-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/german-venue-defends-decision-to-book-r-kelly-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"German Venue Defends Decision to Book R. Kelly Concert"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A venue in Germany defended their decision to book R. Kelly<\/a> for an April concert following the latest string of allegations against the singer, including those that surfaced in Surviving R. Kelly<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Soon after the Lifetime docuseries aired, and RCA quietly parted ways with the singer<\/a>, Kelly announced (and then deleted) plans<\/a> to tour Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. While those tour dates still haven\u2019t materialized, tickets are on sale for Kelly concerts in Neu-Ulm, Germany on April 12th and Hamburg, Germany on April 14th.<\/p>\n

TMZ reports<\/a> that demand for the April 12th concert was so great that Kelly actually had to transfer the show from the 7,200-person MHP Arena in Ludwigsburg to the 9,000-capacity Ratiopharm Arena in Neu-Ulm.<\/p>\n

The decision to book Kelly in Neu-Ulm caused controversy<\/a> in the Bavarian city, but a representative for Ratiopharm Arena defended the venue\u2019s decision to host the concert.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone (in particular: every woman) has the right to personally evaluate the allegations in the room, to form an opinion about R. Kelly and to freely express one\u2019s own opinion \u2013 artistically as well as personally, positively as well as negatively, freedom of expression is a high good, and there are at least very serious allegations in the room,\u201d the venue wrote February 6th on Facebook<\/a>; the statement has been translated from German to English.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, despite thorough research, we have not been able to find any case of allegations in \u2026 which such allegations were the subject of judicial determination in a criminal or even civil process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The venue added, \u201cAnyone who personally considers that the presumption of innocence that is valid in the rule of law \u2013 for good reasons \u2013 is obsolete and that feels called upon to take the place of the rule of law as an instance of social ostracism, is called upon to show caution and restraint. We certainly do not want to presume this competence. This was the ultimate motivation behind our decision, which we did not make easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the Ratiopharm Arena statement added that if \u201cnew facts\u201d should arise prior to the concert, the venue has made \u201ccontractual arrangements\u201d to shut down the gig; the statement was penned prior to reports that a new videotape<\/a> allegedly showing Kelly having sex with an underage girl has surfaced.<\/p>\n

Similar efforts have been made to shut down Kelly\u2019s Hamburg gig, but the venue\u2019s operator told the Hamburger Abendblatt<\/em><\/a> that they were \u201ccontractually bound and currently sees no legal means to terminate the contract unilaterally,\u201d adding that only the show\u2019s organizer to cancel the performance.<\/p>\n

A rep for the Neu-Ulm show sent\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>\u00a0the statement originally posted on Facebook. An organizer of the Hamburg show did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A venue in Germany defended their decision to book R. Kelly for an April concert following the latest string of allegations against the singer, including those that surfaced in Surviving R. Kelly. Soon after the Lifetime docuseries aired, and RCA quietly parted ways with the singer, Kelly announced (and then deleted) plans to tour Australia, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-793090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-14 04:19:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}