Singer Tyrese Gibson is taking incoming fire after making statements that seemingly defended disgraced singer R. Kelly during an interview on rap star Fat Joe’s Instagram show.
Tyrese, one of the stars of Fast and Furious movie franchise, was asked to give his top five R&B singers, and he added the prolific singer-songwriter-producer who has been indicted and jailed on multiple state and federal sex charges.
Tyrese, 41, began with Brian McKnight as his favorite singer when he first broke into the business. Then he added Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, R. Kelly and Teddy Pendergrass to finish out the list.
Without any prompting, Tyrese defended his decision to add R. Kelly to his list.
“R. Kelly, with all of his videos, what he was doing musically and sonically, and how he figured out a way to change and evolve and stay relevant over all of those years,” Tyrese said. “I know he has a lot of controversy and heat on him. I get it. Ain’t no need to get in my comments, and if you write some goofy s— I’m going to say, ‘It’s OK.’ ”
Fat Joe, looking confused, asked Tyrese, “No fear, no problem saying R. Kelly (inaudible)?”
Tyrese quickly interrupted and responded.
“I’m too real to fake it. I just have to say it. What I’ve learned over the years, there is a lot of people in our industry. … Everybody is involved in something that they don’t ever want people to know about publicly. I would say, you know what? Let’s let God do his job,” Tyrese told Fat Joe.
“If I were to find out what everyone is into, we probably wouldn’t be a fan of anybody. There is some people who do what they do, they know how to keep their s— completely in the closet.”
Tyrese’s comments incited a backlash on Fat Joe’s Instagram page.
One fan posted: “That’s not ok to say when there are children involved. Its not just a preference…”
Another wrote, “It wasn’t even necessary to go that deep into trying to cape for Kells. Let God do His job AND let His Believers hold rapists and kidnappers accountable. It ain’t hard to just uphold what’s right. His own sins sent him on that rant. ?”
“Tyrese needs to go away,” a third person wrote.
“These men having wives, moms, sisters and daughters still let them see the rape of black girls and women (and pedophilia of girls AND boys) as a “vice” Just SHUT UP!!,” a fourth person responded.
Flip the page to listen to the Tyrese-Fat Joe interaction in full. The part where Tyrese begins speaking about R. Kelly starts around the 55-minute mark.
