Friends, please ignore the articles popping up attacking
Lady Gaga for not speaking out against R. Kelly and for supporting him when they were promoting "Do What U Want" in 2013. As an obsessed Gaga fan and someone who had a lot more intel than imaginable during her career in 2013 & 2014, I'd like to share the facts you aren't getting because they aren't commonly known. Most of what you are about to read is reliable information I was given at the time, and some of it is speculation based on that information.
If A Star Is Born tells you anything about the music industry, it's that artists are persuaded or manipulated by their management more often than not. That is what happened here. LG had very little choice in working with R. Kelly. She had very little choice in a lot of the creative decisions behind the ARTPOP album as a whole. They used her name and that album to increase sales for multiple rap and R&B artists, including T.I., Twista, and Kelly.
When Interscope records decided last minute to make DWUW the second single from the album, she had a 12+ hour call with the record label begging them not to release the song as a single. It began the night they announced the single and ended later the next day. She lost the argument. Promotion began and she was locked into doing press and performances with Kelly. She then (probably intentionally) fucked up the music video and made it so controversial that the label wouldn't release it, the entire time keeping up a front on social media and interviews that she was so excited about it and about working with him -- because she had to. When the video was scrapped and the song pulled from radio, she said she was legally barred from talking about it (I am unsure where she said this but have checked with other fans to make sure I'm not the only one who remembers it).
Added tidbit: the song itself was not about sex until Interscope added R. Kelly to it. The original demo, the song as Gaga wrote it, is about making her fans a priority despite what touring puts her body through and despite what the media was writing in 2012 about her gaining weight. You can hear the original lyrics that were replaced by R. Kelly in the version with Christina Aguilera, available on all streaming services.
Ernest Owens is a name you're going to see in the articles because he sparked this conversation. He has been attacking her for days because she turned down an opportunity to talk about R. Kelly for the new Lifetime series, even though she legally can't. He even promised he would track her down at the Globes to get his interview... but he wasn't even at the Globes, nor was he invited (from what I've been told).
I've seen a couple people calling her silence an example of white feminism. This is not a race issue. What you have here is not a case of toxic white feminism but an attack against a woman who has been vulnerably and surprisingly open about her past experiences with rape and abuse, an attack because she is in the spotlight right now and it's easy to get attention by using her name. Some other artists who have worked with R. Kelly since the scandals started coming out but have yet to comment: Celine Dion, Diddy, Mary J. Blige , Lil Kim, Jay Z, Usher, T.I., Twista, Ludacris, Kid Rock, Keri Hilson, Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, Snoop Dogg, Ciara, Bow Wow, PCD, Justin Bieber, Jennifer Hudson, Akon, Sean Paul, Kanye West, Robin Thicke, Kelly Rowland, and many more. That's not even half the list, that's just the most recognized names. OF COURSE Gaga is the one being attacked. She's about to win an Oscar and is at the peak of her career.
Do not let the story going around play on your emotions and put you against one of the bravest female, mental health, and LGBT+ advocates currently in Hollywood.
Update: Just to be clear, I hope R. Kelly spends the rest of his life in prison. I am defending LG. Not RK.