Producer dream hampton says she reached out to myriad celebrities for her documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, including Jay-Z, Questlove, Dave Chapelle, Erykah Badu, Lady Gaga, Mary J. Blige, and Lil’ Kim. Questlove has responded that his refusal to participate had nothing to do with support for Kelly.
In a recent interview with Shadow and Act, hampton talked about the celebrities who didn’t want to get involved with the Lifetime docuseries, which begins on January 3:
“John Legend was the only one,” hampton said. “I asked Jay-Z, I asked Mary J. Blige, I asked Lil Kim, Erykah Badu, Dave Chappelle…I mean, most people just don’t want to touch it. I remember Ahmir [”Questlove” Thompson] was like, ‘I would do anything for you but I can’t do this.’ It’s not because they support him, it’s because it’s so messy and muddy. It’s that turning away that has allowed this to go on.”
After the interview was published on January 3, Questlove responded in a since-deleted tweet that he simply didn’t have anything good to say about Kelly and didn’t want to appear to support him, according to Complex:
“I always thought Kels was trash. My reason for declining the RKelly docu that I support 10000000 percent is I didn’t wanna be in the ‘good times’ portion of the doc, like stanning for his ‘genius,’” Questlove wrote on Twitter. “I was asked to talk about his genius. I do not nor have I EVER stanned for him.”
hampton replied that she asked Questlove “to come on camera and say the same thing you said on Twitter. I told you I need black male allies.”
Questlove deleted the tweets but retweeted hampton’s October post announcing the docuseries.