R. Kelly, a disgraced R&B singer, has been sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison for child pornography, racketeering, and sex trafficking convictions. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on child pornography charges in a Chicago federal court in 2023, though 19 of those years will be served concurrently with a previous 30-year sentence. Kelly has faced allegations of sexual abuse throughout his career, including lawsuits brought against him for allegedly having sex with minors. Scrutiny against Kelly resurfaced in the late 2010s when a Buzzfeed News report alleged he ran a “cult” in which he dictated the lives of and emotionally and sexually manipulated six women. Surviving R. Kelly, a six-part Lifetime docuseries chronicling Kelly’s alleged instances of abuse, premiered in January 2019 and featured interviews with women who accused him of physical, sexual, and mental abuse. The series inspired wide backlash against Kelly from former collaborators, celebrities, and social media users, and he was dropped from his record label later that month. Kelly was arrested in July 2019 on new charges brought by multiple jurisdictions. In 2021, he was convicted under the Mann Act and for racketeering, and in 2022, he was on trial in his hometown, Chicago, for child pornography, obstruction of justice, and other charges. The jury convicted him on six out of 13 counts, including three of child pornography, after the four-week Chicago case. Some of the women who were abused by the singer described how he had "destroyed so many peoples lives" as they addressed him in court before he was sentenced. Lawyers for Kelly said he would appeal.