R. Kelly (42) was married to Andrea Lee Kelly (35) for 11 years, and they just got divorced. The couple have two children together, and they will have a joint custody agreement.

In 2005, Andrea, filed an emergency protective order to keep the singer away from her amid claims of physical abuse which she rescinded weeks later. The couple then filed for divorce in 2006, but were still trying to make things work.

Andrea told Essence magazine in 2007:

"Some people in my position would probably be very broken right now, and they would probably be saying, ’Woe is me.’ But I’m just not that person."

The couple married in 1996, two years after the then-20-year-old Andrea had auditioned as a backup dancer for the singer/songwriter/record producer. She would go on to handle most of the choreography for his tours, videos and live performances.

Andrea must have gotten too old for R. Kelly. She sounds like she was a keeper, especially since she stuck it out despite the legal troubles R. Kelly had during their marriage.

BET News journalist Toure interviewed R. Kelly, and was able to get him to speak openly about his child pornography trail. The interview went like this:

Kelly: "I can’t keep answering these questions. If you was charged with something and you were found innocent, then you can’t be found guilty for being found innocent."

Toure: Let me ask you something real that millions of Americans are thinking about and wondering about you. Do you like teenage girls?

Kelly: When you say teenage, how old are we talking?
Toure: Girls who are teenagers.

Kelly: 19?

Toure: 19 and younger.

Kelly: I have some 19-year-old friends, but I don’t like anybody illegal if that’s what we’re talking about, underage.

Toure: Uh-huh. Some people think that you like underage girls. What do you say to that?

Kelly: Those people don’t know Robert. They don’t know me. I usually don’t get into what people think about me, because all my career — even before the trial — people had their opinions about Robert, you know. That’s probably because, it had a lot to do with me kind of shying away from the crowd, ’cause I’m always in the the studio, digging deep into the basement all the time of my house, creating music. So when people don’t know you, they can’t touch you like they could someone else. They seem to form opinions or have thoughts about you that they like to, you know, think.

Toure: Some of the people who’ve worked with you have said there’s an issue here. Your former manager has said publicly there’s an issue of concern here. Your brother Carey has said there’s an issue of concern here.

Kelly: Issue of concern? What do you mean when you say issue of concern?

Toure: They said that they’re concerned that you like underage girls.

Kelly: Let me put it to you this way, man. It’s unfortunate that people who don’t work for me says that the people that do work for me don’t say that, and the people who don’t work for me were fired. If you have someone work for you and they’re mad ’cause they’re not working for you anymore and used to getting a certain amount of money or a certain amount of fame because they work for you, because you’re famous, and all of a sudden they mess you around and you let them go — anything that comes up about you, they’re gonna run and say, "Yeah, he did that to me! I knew this, too, about him." But you really can’t, you know — I don’t want you, I want my fans: Do not list to the people that was fired. Don’t even listen to the people that was hired. Listen to the facts, and get into what you think and make your own opinion. If you’re gonna have an opinion about me, have your own opinion of what you think about me. What you definitely don’t do is go by somebody that was fired and mad and pissed off about you because they were fired.
Toure: But your brother Carey was not fired. He’s your brother.

Kelly: He was fired.

Toure: But he’s still your brother.

Kelly: Doesn’t matter. He’s still my brother, but if he’s so my brother [then] why’d he get fired?

Toure: Why did he get fired?

Kelly: I can’t get into that. … Unfortunately, it’s like this: When you’re me, when you’re R. Kelly, everybody wants a piece of you, and if you don’t give ’em a piece they’ll find a way to get a piece of you one way or the other. I’ve been blackmailed a billion times in my career — before the trial, during the trial, after the trial — I’ve been sued for stuff that … ridiculous things. At one point in my life, I was an ATM machine. People would come up and push whatever, and if it don’t come out they’ll go tell somebody this or they’ll go run and say this, run and say that. I’m used to that. I’m, you know — you don’t get used to it. Let me take that back. I’m not used to it, but I’m used to the fact I know people will do this, sometimes even your own family members. I don’t hate no one of ’em, but I know a lot of people will be out to get me ’cause I’m very vulnerable, man, especially during a seven-year trial.
Toure: So there’s no issue here? They’re all wrong, there’s no issue here — that’s what you’re saying?

Kelly: It depends on who you say "they’re all," and what they’re saying.

It all boils down, for R. Kelly, to what the definition of "is" is. Since the trial R. Kelly is no longer into underage girls, just barely legal girls.

Despite a majority of jurors voting it was R. Kelly who appeared in the video tape, at the center of his trial where he was found not guilty, one juror said, "What we had wasn’t enough." Jurors let R. Kelly go they say because the evidence wasn’t sufficient to convict him. Good thing R. Kelly is rich and famous, because an ordinary person would be in jail right now.

After the not guilty verdict was read R. Kelly cried like a baby. Wouldn’t you? It must be a huge relief to have a trial that took six years to get to, finally behind him.

R. Kelly was found NOT GUILTY of all fourteen counts of child pornography.

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This week the reporter who was sent the infamous R. Kelly tape, at the center of his criminal trial, was ordered to court with a bench warrant. When the reporter finally took the stand to testify, he took the fifth amendment over and over. The issue was whether the reporter had made copies of the tape, which would constitute a crime.

On Thursday the Kelly defense lawyers brought in their own video tape forensic expert, to refute claims by the prosecutor’s expert who said there was indeed a mole on the back of the man in the tape, which matched one on Kelly’s back. The latest expert said the black mark that appears in the video appears, and disappears, because the video has been duplicated so many times. Doesn’t that mean the black mark is a mole, but it’s harder to see if the tape has been duplicated?

Kelly should just take a plea deal.