Amsterdam venue removes R. Kelly concert from website
Amsterdam venue The Box removed an R. Kelly concert scheduled for April from its website. The link which used to give details about the concert now only reads "page not found". The event is still scheduled to take place, as the concert promoter has not yet canceled it, the venue confirmed to NL Times.
"However, we did not think it appropriate to still communicate the event through our channels, as the situation is so unclear [and the] uncertainty about the artist," Nora van der Woude said. She added it was not appropriate to steer people from the venue's website to the ticket sales portal until there is more clarity. The R. Kelly concert is also no longer listed among its upcoming events.
Promotion firm J. Noah did not respond to emails sent over the weekend. Calls to the firm went unanswered on Monday.
Over the weekend Van der Woude, a partner and co-owner at The Box, told NL Times that the venue spent the last month looking for a way to scrap a rental deal with the promoter who spearheaded the R. Kelly event without risking legal consequences. Their legal team is still combing through the rental agreement to determine if the venue can cancel the event.
"When we signed the rental agreement with the concert promoter J Noah Entertainment in 2018, we weren’t and couldn’t have been aware of the content of the Documentary and the media-explosion and public attention it generated," Van der Woude said, referring to the documentary mini-series Surviving R. Kelly. The special first aired on Lifetime in the U.S. in early January.
The documentary detailed numerous allegations of sexual abuse, and abuse of power. The musician was arrested again in Chicago on Friday. A judge in Cook County, Illinois set Kelly's bond at $1 million the next day after a prosecutor laid out details of 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse against four female victims, three of whom were between 13 and 17 years of age.
It took several days for Kelly to put together ten percent of the bond amount, $100 thousand, which was required for a release from jail before trial.
The R. Kelly concert in Amsterdam on April 20 was announced after Surviving R. Kelly was broadcast. It sparked an immediate backlash, and a petition from an activist who wanted to see him sent to jail. “He is a sick bastard, that rapes and uses girls for sex,” the petitioner told NL Times exclusively. She added that she found it insulting that he would be allowed to enter The Netherlands to perform.
