When R. Kelly was arrested on sex trafficking charges last week, many — likely including the singer himself — assumed that he would be released within hours. After all, Kelly has proven surprisingly adept at evading authorities over the years, and he’s remained a free man despite dozens of allegations against him over the course of two decades. But a full week after he was taken into custody, Kelly remains behind bars. A judge denied him bail at a hearing on Tuesday, so it looks like he’ll remain locked up at least until his trial. And as is so often the case with rich and powerful men who lead lives of crime, the possibility of being locked up for a very long time didn’t seem real to Kelly until he actually spent some time behind bars. Now, it’s all hitting home for the 52-year-old, and it seems he’s very aware that prison isn’t a very pleasant place for convicted sex offenders. According to a new report from TMZ, Kelly is being kept in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. And the surprising thing is, he prefers it that way. Kelly’s attorney, Nicole Blank Becker, tells TMZ that the R&B legend feels that his life would be in danger in the general prison population. And he must really be afraid of getting snuffed out because life in the hole sounds like a nightmare experience. Whereas the gen. pop. inmates have access to the phone whenever they want, Kelly has just 15 minutes a month to speak with family and friends on the outside. On top of that, he receives no TV or internet access. Kelly is almost entirely illiterate, which further complicates his situation, as even minor tasks like choosing items from the commissary list are nearly impossible for the singer. And so, Kelly and his lawyers are at odds over his situation. They feel it’s unsafe for him to remain in solitary; he feels it would be unsafe for him to live among the general population. It’s possible that in this case, he knows something they don’t. TMZ reports that Kelly has little to no support among his fellow inmates, which is not surprising. He’s locked up in his native Chicago, and given the number of accusers he’s amassed over the years, it seems almost impossible none of them have any association with one of the prisoners. Meanwhile, the case against Kelly seems to get stronger by the day. Prosecutors claim they’re in possession of a tape that shows Kelly engaging in sex acts with multiple minors . It that’s the case, this may be an open-and-shut trial. And Kelly might be right about how at risk he would be outside of protective custody. View Slideshow: R. Kelly Addresses Sex Abuse Accusations in 19-Minute Song
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R. Kelly: Fearing For His Life In Prison, Loving Solitary Confinement
