Gayle King’s extended interview with R. Kelly aired Friday as a primetime special that showed the tense moments immediately after the singer’s outburst.
In a heated segment from the interview that went viral earlier in the week, an emotional Kelly stood up from his chair and started yelling at the camera while King calmly remained seated until the outburst ended.
The Gayle King Interview With R. Kelly showed the unedited version of that portion of the interview, with Kelly eventually composing himself enough to sit down and resume the interview. A person off-camera, presumably the crisis manager King previously alluded to, said the talking point “You need help,” which Kelly picks up on.
“I need help,” Kelly then told King. “This is the kind of help I need: I need somebody to help me not have a big heart. Because my heart is so big, people betray me and I keep forgiving them!”
King then accused Kelly of “playing the victim card.” “I’m just telling the truth,” Kelly fired back.
“You could start a rumor on a guy like me or a celebrity, just like that,” Kelly explained of the accusations in Surviving R. Kelly. “Thirty years in the business, a relationship just didn’t work out. All you had to do was push a button on your phone and say ‘so-and-so did this to me, R. Kelly did this to me,’ and if you’re able to get any traction from that, if you’re able to write a book from that, if you’re able to get a reality show…”
King asked Kelly whether he is, as the allegations have claimed, a controlling person. “I’m not a controlling person, it’s just that I am in control of my household. Say, if you live with me, I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the queen of the castle,” the singer said.
Kelly also discussed his celebratory visit to a Chicago-area McDonald’s after the singer was released on bail following several days in jail.
“You ever been to jail, Gayle? Listen to me closely: So I was very hungry. My favorite restaurant is McDonald’s, because I love my mom and I got memories of me and mom, because we’d always order Danish and coffee. When it comes to that McDonald’s, that M stands for ‘mom,’” Kelly said.
“So when I got out of jail, I said I’m gonna get myself a Big Mac, a fry and a Coke. I had my hoodie on. I went to McDonald’s and I ate. What is the crime in that?”
Kelly remained behind bars Friday, two days after a judge ordered him back to jail for failing to pay a delinquent $160,000 in child support.