O.J. All Over Again

And audiences have lapped it up. People don't want him to change a thing. One female fan hoped Kelly wouldn't get all spiritual, à la Al Green, and turn his back on the sinful, secular music that made him a star. Agreed, it does seem like a cop-out when celebrity heathens stop backsliding and suddenly find Jesus. But her take on it appeared more troubling since it sounded like she was in denial about Kelly's kinky demons. Like most fans -- especially females -- she was willing to give Kelly a pass, as long as the sensitive-superfreak persona stayed intact. It's discouraging -- even the most intense R. Kelly fan has to worry if the man has serious, harmful problems.

And even the most intense R. Kelly fan also has to wonder about his appetite for self-destruction. "Osama bin Laden is the only one who knows what I'm going through," Kelly actually said in a recent interview in Blender. No, really. For the record: Osama bin Laden is responsible for the most horrific terrorist attack in American history. R. Kelly allegedly pissed on a kid on tape. Can't really compare the two, can ya? If anything, he has more in common with Bill Clinton. Like Clinton, Kelly appears to take masochistic joy in nearly destroying his image -- all for kinky sex.

But all that is moot now. All that matters now is that Kelly is back out on the road, and thousands of black people from miles around will come out and show their love. But no matter how much you may get into his jams, no matter how much you may groove to "Bump n' Grind" or "Sex Me" or that damn song he did for Batman & Robin, this question has to burn in the back of your mind: Did this muthafucka really pee on a 14-year-old girl on camera?

You can't really enjoy looking at anybody's crotch when something like that has seeped into your cranium.