It has been six years since someone sent a videotape to a Chicago tabloid allegedly showing the R&B star R. Kelly performing sex acts with a girl claimed to be as young as 13.

The 41-year-old singer, who had a No 1 hit with I Believe I Can Fly, shrugged off the scandal and continued to sell millions of records, collaborating with artists from Céline Dion to Kid Rock.

The allegedly underage girl in the video, said to have been recorded some time between January 1998 and November 2000, is now 23, prosecutors say.

After many delays, including the presiding judge falling off a ladder, the singer suffering a burst appendix and the lead prosecutor giving birth, the allegation is finally being put to a trial. Jury selection began yesterday to pick a panel that could put the self-styled “Pied Piper of R&B” behind bars for up to 15 years if he is found guilty.

As R. Kelly arrived at court yesterday, fans cheered, but critics waved signs and called him a paedophile. Inside, Judge Vincent Gaughan outlined the indictment to potential jurors, while the defence lawyer Marc Martin told the court that the jury pool had been “irrevocably poisoned” by an article in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday citing sources talking about a potential witness.

R. (for Robert) Kelly was brought up by his mother, a waitress and sometime singer, on the notoriously tough housing estates of Chicago’s South Side. He rose to become a solo sensation in the 1990s with sexually charged hits such as Bump n’ Grind and Ignition.

“R. Kelly is a phenomenal artist and he also knows how to read the public in terms of music. His music is always relevant,” said Mark Anthony Neal, the author of New Black Man and a professor of African-American studies at Duke University. “There has been a swagger about him these last five, six years as though he is untouchable.”

The 26-minute videotape, distributed on the Internet and sold on street corners, was dated to 1998-2000 by a TV in the background playing ads for The Money Store, which closed in 2000, and “new” videos from the Back-street Boys and the Spice Girls, which came out in late 1998 or early 1999.

R. Kelly denies that he is the man in the video and has pleaded not guilty. “R. Kelly is looking forward to his day in court and he is confident that when all the evidence comes out, he will be shown not to have committed any crime,” Melissa Erickson, his spokes-woman, said.

Even more problematic for the prosecution is that the woman they have identified as the allegedly underage girl insists that it is not her. Court papers suggest that the 23-year-old woman may actually testify on R. Kelly’s behalf. To challenge her, prosecutors have prepared four dozen witnesses in an attempt to identify the girl – including one woman who will apparently claim that she had three-way sex with R. Kelly and the girl.

“I think he has a good chance of beating it,” said Leonard Cavise, a law professor at DePaul University, who is following the case. “He is not charged with sexual assault. All they have to prove is that he was in possession of pornography that had a child in it, which means all they have to prove is the person in it was a child. Normally, that would be extremely easy, except that in this case you have the alleged child and her mother and father who will take the stand and say, ‘It’s not me’. So this is an extremely tough case.

“The only thing they can do, on cross-examination, is prove she is lying. If they do not do that beyond reasonable doubt, he has to walk.”

Prosecutors have asked the judge behind closed doors to allow evidence of other allegations of underage sex against R. Kelly. At a pretrial hearing this week, at which R. Kelly appeared, media organisations also argued for access to sealed court records and transcripts relating to the case. Judge Gaughan said that he would rule on the motion next week.

R. Kelly secretly married the singer Aaliyah, his protégé, in 1994 when she was 15. The marriage was later annulled by her parents before Aaliyah died in a 2001 air crash.

The R&B star has also settled three lawsuits accusing him of having sex with underage girls – including one who claimed that he forced her to have an abortion. R. Kelly’s spokesman said that the singer reluctantly settled the civil lawsuits on the advice of his lawyer. He did not admit to the allegations.

Across the years

— When Jerry Lee Lewis, rock’n’roll musician, married his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, in 1957, radio stations refused to play his music, bookings were cancelled and several years passed before his career recovered

— Miami Vice actor Don Johnson was 22 when he began a four-year relationship with 14-year-old Melanie Griffith. She moved in with him and they were married three years later. She went on to become a star in her own right

— In 1992 film director Woody Allen was accused of sleeping with his partner Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon Yi Previn. She was 21, he was 56. They were later married

— Elvis Presley met Priscilla in 1959 in Germany, where her father was stationed at an airbase near Friedberg. Elvis, too, was based there while in the army. She was invited to a party at Elvis’s home. Priscilla was 14, Elvis 24. They married eight years later in 1967

— Bill Wyman started “dating” 13-year-old Mandy Smith in 1983 when he was 47. They married six years later – and divorced two years after that

Sources: imdb.com; Times archives

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