Da Brat spoke out after she defended R. Kelly, said she’d always listen to the singer’s music and blamed the parents of his accusers. The rapper was asked about the new allegations that came after the “Surviving R. Kelly” documentary seires aired, and her response sparked a lot of negative feedback.
“I love him, I grew up with him,” said Brat on the red carpet of the Trumpet Awards. “I never seen him do anything bad, but I don’t believe all these people are lying. At the same time, where are the parents?”
“Where is your 14 year-old-child?” she continued. “Why are you there? I can’t stop listening to the music. Never will I stop listening to the music. I might not buy it no more, but it’s already in my playlist.”
But this week on “The Rickey Smiley Show,” Brat said she watched the documentary series again and it completely changed her mind about the singer.
“I just need to make myself clear,” she explained. “I stayed up all night and watched the documentary over, and I had to re-evaluate myself. I was in denial. I had to truly dissect the way I view relationships in my life and those I call family.”
“You think you know somebody and you don’t,” Brat added. “No one deserves this. Right is right, and no man or woman should have to endure sexual violence of any kind.”
The M.C. and radio host then addressed the parents of the alleged victims.
“I’m sorry that you have to go through this and you continue to go through this,” she stated. “I stand on the side of right. Sexually violating anybody is wrong and I was wrong.”
After Brat read her statement, Smiley asked if she saw the documentary series when it first aired, and she said yes but she didn’t look at it with “the right view.”
And just like she did on the red carpet, Brat explained that she knew Kelly since childhood and that made it difficult for her to really listen to the women in “Surviving R. Kelly.”
“But watching it again last night and taking myself out of who I knew, I started to see it from the victim’s view,” she explained.
You can listen to Da Brat’s full apology below.
