With the sequel to “Surviving R. Kelly” premiering on Thursday (Jan. 2), another teaser interview has arrived to stir up anticipation for the series, this time with Damon Dash.
Dash, who previously dated Aaliyah, revealed the late singer’s feelings surrounding her underage, and later annulled, marriage to R. Kelly.
“Aaliyah was like, the sacrificial lamb for all that ‘cause she didn’t deserve none of that,” he said in an interview clip published by TMZ. “Good soul. Good girl. And [she] wasn’t even so resentful, like, ‘Let that man live but just keep him the f*ck away from me.’ That’s all she wanted. She was just happy to be away.”
Another charge was recently added to Kelly’s expansive rap sheet, which accused him of bribing a government official in order to obtain a fake ID for Aaliyah, so that he could marry her when she was 15 years old.
Kelly’s former tour manager, Demetrius Smith, previously admitted to helping Kelly obtain the fake ID just days before their marriage in 1994. Kelly, who was 27 at the time, pleaded not guilty to the charge in court.
“And you know, I know the whole story,” Dash continued. “You know what I’m sayin’? I know it was the cover-up and all of that. But how did that cover it up? It just made the conversation, ‘Oh, he married a child?’ So how you still—that was a headline! That was like, a rumor. That was something talked about like it was normal. It wasn’t like, ‘Ew disgusting, you married a 13 year old.’ It was like, ‘Oh, he married Aaliyah?’ She’s 13!”
The “Surviving R Kelly II: The Reckoning” interviewer paused Dash to correct him, saying that Aaliyah was actually 15.
Dash responded, saying, “15, 13, anything under 18 is disgusting… That’s still a child.”
The upcoming series previously released a tease clip for another highly anticipated interview with alleged Kelly abuse survivor, Dominique Gardner. Despite not being well-received by all of Kelly’s victims, the sequel series airs tonight at 9 p.m. EST (Jan. 2).