R. Kelly is not giving up on his bid for freedom.
Kelly, 59, has formally asked the Trump administration to commute his 31-year federal prison sentence for sex crimes.
Attorney Beau Brindley told TMZ the request was submitted to the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney on Tuesday.
Brindley asked the DOJ to commute the R&B singer’s combined sentence following his 2021 and 2022 convictions in Brooklyn, New York, and Chicago, Illinois.
Related Story: ‘Surviving R. Kelly: The Final Chapter’ Details Horrific Accounts of Abuse
USA Today reports the Department of Justice said the request is “pending.” The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
A commutation reduces a sentence without overturning the conviction, while a pardon forgives the offense.
Two Sentences
In June 2022, Kelly was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a federal jury in Brooklyn found him guilty on racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
Then in February 2023, a federal judge in Chicago sentenced him to 20 years for child pornography and enticement of minors. At the time, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber ruled Kelly could serve all but one year concurrently, making the total sentence 31 years.
The Grammy winner was transferred to a federal prison in North Carolina in April 2023. According to the Bureau of Prisons website, he is currently scheduled to be released on Jan. 31, 2046.
Previous Bids for Freedom
The singer, prolific songwriter, and producer has made repeated attempts to get out of prison.
In 2025, a federal judge rejected his request to be released on home confinement. At the time, Kelly’s attorneys alleged in a court filing that prison officials gave him too much medication to treat his health problems.
“They gave him an amount of medicine that could have killed him,” the attorneys said in a court filing, as previously reported.
The Grammy winner’s legal team also asked Trump for a pardon last year, saying there was a “plot to kill him” as he tried to expose alleged “corruption” in his federal prosecutions.
Prosecutors dismissed the allegations, calling the singer a “master manipulator.”
Born Robert Sylvester Kelly, he was one of the most popular artists in R&B music in the 1990s and 2000s. His hit “I Believe I Can Fly” earned him three Grammys in 1998. Among his other hits were “Bump n’ Grind,” “Trapped In The Closet,” “I Wish,” “Step In The Name of Love,” “Fiesta” and “When a Woman’s Fed Up.”
But for years, Kelly faced accusations of sexual misconduct and child molestation, even as he climbed the charts, was given widespread radio play, and rose to massive success.
He was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, following a state trial in Chicago.
The decades-long allegations against the “Ignition” singer received renewed attention when Lifetime aired its 2019 docuseries Surviving R. Kelly and followed it up with Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning, which detailed decades of alleged abuse.
The series included dozens of interviews with the singer’s accusers, his family members and celebrities, including John Legend, Wendy Williams, and R&B artist Sparkle. The feds came knocking a short time later.
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