It’s been an eventful week for celebrity justice, especially of the entirely predictable kind. First, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for recruiting and trafficking young girls. Now, the musician and paedophile R. Kelly has received a 30-year prison sentence for sexually abusing girls, boys and women.
He was convicted of the offence last September so a lengthy prison sentence has been inevitable ever since. Still, 30 years is a long, long time. Should Robert Sylvester Kelly make it to the end of his incarceration — and the odds against a high-profile convicted sex offender surviving unmolested are not high — then he will be 85 upon his release. A once-stellar music career is over. His name is now a byword for infamy.
None of Kelly’s troubles will come as a surprise to observers. Two decades ago, he was first charged on multiple counts of making DIY sex videos with underage girls.
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