Erykah Badu and dream hampton, the executive producer of the Surviving R. Kelly series, engaged in a war of words on Twitter yesterday (January 22) over Badu’s apparent invitation to appear in the documentary.
Surviving R. Kelly aired in full across three days earlier this month, with the six-part Lifetime series detailing multiple allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against Kelly. The singer has constantly denied any wrongdoing.
Days after Badu reportedly offered “a prayer” for Kelly during a live performance, the artist has now had a heated Twitter exchange with hampton over her invitation to appear in the series. The posts began after Badu responded to a Twitter user who alleged that the artist had declined to take part in Surviving R. Kelly.
That’s not true. I’ve never worked with him, don’t know him personally , and was never asked to be a part of the documentary. https://t.co/nRajs33Hjy
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella) January 22, 2019
After denying that she had never worked with Kelly and was never asked to be in the documentary, hampton replied to say that she and her fellow producers had tried to contact Badu to be in the documentary as “I wanted clarity on two things: 1) a quote attributed to her, “No one has done more for Black people than R. Kelly” & 2) what she was thinking when she called him her “brother” at Soul Train Awards.”
https://twitter.com/dreamhampton/status/1087803651702157312
Badu then again denied that she’d ever been asked to appear in Surviving R. Kelly, saying that she “wasn’t a necessary component” and asked for an apology from Hampton.
The producer scoffed at the idea of apologising to Badu and repeated remarks the musician had made about Kelly at the 2015 Soul Train Awards, while also declining to post screenshots of the texts which apparently requested Badu’s presence in the documentary. See those tweets below.
No ma’am. I WAS NOT EVER contacted by anyone to be in documentary.@dreamhampton You know that’s not true. I wasn’t a necessary component. You had all the right people, the ones close to the situation…But for now, produce this “producer’s” request or… APOLOGIZE. It’s simple. https://t.co/cgBcpPePMI
— ErykahBadoula (@fatbellybella) January 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/dreamhampton/status/1087916470787399680
And no, I’m not producing Tina Farris’s texts to you.
— dream hampton (@dreamhampton) January 23, 2019
Earlier this week, Spotify announced a new feature on its service which lets users mute artists they wish to block from their accounts on the streaming platform.