Serving as the conclusion of the network's revelatory docuseries, the two-night event will detail survivors' experiences during the singer and convicted sex trafficker's trial earlier this year.
- December 15, 2022
AceShowbiz - Lifetime has unveiled the trailer for "Surviving R. Kelly: The Final Chapter". Shared on Wednesday, December 14, the trailer teases the conclusion of its revelatory docuseries about sex assault and sex trafficking accusations against disgraced artist R. Kelly.
The two-night event will see several survivors detailing experiences during the singer and convicted sex trafficker's trial earlier this year. It will also feature them discussing the fear and intimidation they faced around their public testimonies.
The trailer sees victims and experts blasting R. Kelly's inner circle and their potential role in covering up his crimes for years. "He didn't do it alone, there was an enterprise," a parent of one of R. Kelly's victims says, with another noting that the R&B singer's "bodyguards," "entourage" and "assistants" played some roles.
"They are sick just like him," one other notes. "Everyone in R. Kelly's operation needs to be in jail. Everyone," someone adds.
The trailer also highlights the deadly threats his various survivors faced while still being abused by the artist, who is currently serving his 30-year prison sentence, and when trying to come forward. It also gave insights into how survivors' parents responded to the whole thing.
"This is something unprecedented in the history of popular music with, I believe, hundreds of victims," says one expert of R. Kelly's victimization across decades. "I now know 69."
Elsewhere in the trailer, public protests in support of and against the singer during his trial flicker on the screen. At one other point, the trailer describes the case testimony "horrifying" with an individual calling the evidence "the most horrific audio or video that I've ever heard in my life."
A survivor later shares that she was held at gunpoint. Before the trailer ends, one voice asks, "How did he get away with this for 30 years?"
Joel Karsberg of Kreativ Inc., a creative working pod with Bunim Murray Productions, Tamra Simmons, Jesse Daniels, and Maria Pepin and Brie Miranda Bryant from Lifetime executive produce "Surviving R. Kelly: The Final Chapter". It is set to air on January 2-3 at 8 P.M. ET/PT on Lifetime.
