Crying R. Kelly
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About
Crying R. Kelly refers to an interview with Gayle King on CBS This Morning[5] in which R. Kelly dramatically defends himself by crying, yelling and denying that he ever sexually abused women. Still images and GIFs from the interview have since been used as reaction images and memes, particularly his line "I'm Fighting for My Fucking Life" during the segment.
Origin
On March 5th, 2019, CBS Evening News uploaded "R. Kelly disputes sexual abuse allegations in explosive interview" to YouTube. This was a preview of the full interview that would air the next morning (shown below). The video gained 291,755 views and 2,000 likes in a day.
Spread
On March 5th, 2019, many Twitter users began reacting to the interviews preview. That day @amazontrollop[1] tweeted "R.Kelly thought his interview would clear his name. Nah nigga you just gave us memes for the next couple of months" (shown below, left). The post gained 568 retweets and 1,1414 likes in a day. Twitter user @DNdamagi[2] also commented on this interview's meme potential with the tweet, "can the 'R kelly crying meme' be the new 'Michael Jordan cry meme'? (shown below, right).
Later that night, Twitter users began parodying the image of R. Kelly crying. Twitter user @NiggaImBroke[3] tweeted "I BELIEVEEEE I CAN CRYYYYY" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered 70 retweets and 148 likes in a day. Twitter user @iKayOreOo[4] tweeted "Men: Please don't leave. I'll change
"You think I'm gonna put up with cheating & lying. How many more times do you expect me to stay?!"
Men: #RKelly" (shown below, right).
On March 6th, @JButton052018 posted one of the many tweets that mocked Kelly's crying (shown below).
R Kelly crying
The Black Community: pic.twitter.com/6DwhtuEldx— Je'lon Alexander (@JButton052018) March 6, 2019
That morning, CBS This Morning released the full interview (shown below). The video gained over 4,000 views in the the first three hours on YouTube.
The full interview encouraged more parodies of the clip in which Kelly stands up and yells in the interview (shown below).
R kelly sound just like Denzel in training day when he was bout to die 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/nwcZvlR8k0
— MB (@babyitsmb) March 6, 2019
Various Examples
sees r.kelly crying pic.twitter.com/AKKzgO5JaN
— Binz (@lucidnee) March 6, 2019
When you finna bust in the first 5 mins and she say “don’t cum daddy” pic.twitter.com/cXu70bSJeT
— South Padre 2K19 🌴☀️ (@SouthPadreHUB) March 6, 2019
