Gaga on R. Kelly Duet: 'I Was Angry'

Singer-actress vows to get 2013 song removed from streaming services
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 10, 2019 2:03 AM CST
Updated Jan 10, 2019 7:12 AM CST
Gaga on R. Kelly Duet: 'I Was Angry'
Lady Gaga arrives at the 76th annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday.   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Lady Gaga's 2013 duet with R. Kelly, "Do What U Want (With My Body)," isn't sitting well with the A Star Is Born actress following a Lifetime docuseries highlighting abuse allegations against her onetime collaborator. The allegations of sexual and physical abuse are "absolutely horrifying and indefensible," the 32-year-old sexual assault survivor said in an Instagram Stories post on Wednesday, per People, hours after CNN reported she was facing increasing pressure to condemn the man she once defended. Per the Daily Beast, she previously said the pair have "very untrue things written about us." Now claiming R. Kelly's accusers have her full support, Lady Gaga vows not to work with the R&B singer again and to have their song removed from all streaming services.

If the song, and a 2013 performance of it on Saturday Night Live, now appear in bad taste, that's nothing compared to a scrapped video, directed by another alleged sexual predator, Terry Richardson. A source once told the New York Post it was "literally an ad for rape." Indeed, leaked clips showed R. Kelly posing as a doctor who touched a naked patient beneath a sheet shortly before she fell unconscious. It came out of a desire "to create something extremely defiant and provocative because I was angry and still hadn't processed the trauma that had occurred in my own life," Gaga says. Referencing the song title, she adds, "I think it's clear how explicitly twisted my thinking was at the time." (An official investigation into R. Kelly could be next.)

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