It was a wild scene in the basement of the Daley Center when R. Kelly was led away Wednesday in handcuffs, but his publicist says it was never supposed to happen.
"He wasn’t expecting what happened yesterday to happen. So he is really upset about that," Darnell Johnson told NBC 5. "He was expecting to walk in and walk out. That didn’t happen. So right now, he is at wits end. He wants to get out."
Johnson said Kelly’s team is trying to raise the more than $160,000 dollars in back child support needed to win his freedom, but given his client’s financial situation, that won’t be easy.
"R. Kelly has had a lot of issues with finances and so right now, with everything going on in his life, child support, he can't get booked, he can't go out on tour, he can't do anything," Johnson said. "His bad management throughout the years has hurt him, so he is strapped for cash."
Strapped for cash and facing an uphill public relations battle after a volatile interview with CBS This Morning’s Gayle King.
Johnson says it was his advice to grant the interview.
"Every single person who has not talked, they are in prison," he said. "So if he didn’t talk, they would say 'why didn’t he say something?' he did talk. He wanted to do it."
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Johnson, who came to the federal building Thursday to meet with Kelly's attorney Steve Greenberg, says he is not here to talk about guilt or innocence, but he is trying to make peace between the embattled singer and the parents of the girls he is alleged to be keeping captive.
"I am here to navigate a safe passage for everybody, so everybody’s happy," he said. "The parents, the kids. I have arranged next week, if everything works out, so they can have a meeting, they can see their children, they can see their kids."
Kelly has denied any allegations of wrongdoing and Johnson says it’s his job to make sure that word gets out.
"Mr. Kelly spoke his truth, he did that," Johnson said. "That’s his truth."
