Aaliyah was 14 years old when she recorded the ballad Age Ain't Nothing But A Number. The singer, born in New York and raised in Detroit, had signed her first record deal with Blackground Records two years earlier. A few months later, Aaliyah was introduced to hip-hop star and producer R. Kelly, who would fuel the musical prodigy's career. The then twenty-six-year-old sat in the studio and began to write for Aaliyah: titles like “Back & Forth”, a tribute to the joy of celebrating a young person, “The Thing I Like” about sexual attraction and “Age Ain't Nothing But A Number “, A song about a young girl who dreams of an older lover. Shortly after Aaliyah's first album was released in May 1994, rumors began to spread.The 15-year-old singer and her producer, who was twelve years her senior, allegedly not only got closer musically.
Aaliyah and R. Kelly, it was said, were a couple. And secretly married in the summer of 1994. The marriage certificate, which the music magazine Vibe printed in January 1995, came from a registry office in Rosemont near Chicago. According to the certificate, the groom was 27 years old and the bride 18 years old. There was speculation that R. Kelly had paid an officer to raise the age of Aaliyah, who was then only 15 years old. When the underage bride's parents found out about the wedding, they pushed for the wedding to be canceled. Aaliyah, known as "Baby Girl", died in the summer of 2001 in a plane crash off the Bahamas. “I loved Aaliyah. But in a different, friendly way, ”R. Kelly told GQ magazine in 2016.
Following charges of human trafficking, sexual abuse and bribery, the trial of R. Kelly, which begins today in federal court in the Brooklyn neighborhood of New York, also reinterprets his relationship with Aaliyah. According to prosecutors, the Grammy Award winner not only had an illegal sexual relationship with the underage singer, but also believed that she was expecting a child. At a hearing last week, prosecutors accused the fifty-four-year-old of arranging the secret, illegal wedding in Rosemont to protect himself from prosecution. As a wife, Aaliyah should not have testified against R. Kelly if charged. The defense's objection,the liaison between the producer and the late singer could be used by the jury against her client and should therefore not be discussed during the trial, the court rejected. "The matter is obviously relevant and shows a motive for illegal activities," decided the presiding judge Ann Donnelly. In order to take this into account in the process, Aaliyah becomes the key witness against R. Kelly 20 years after her death under the placeholder name Jane Doe # 1.20 years after her death, Aaliyah becomes the star witness against R. Kelly under the placeholder name Jane Doe # 1.20 years after her death, Aaliyah becomes the star witness against R. Kelly under the placeholder name Jane Doe # 1.