PART 2: THE PHONE THAT DOESN’T RINGPrison is a system of waiting. Waiting for mail call. Waiting for commissary. Waiting for the 15 minutes you are allowed on the phone.R. Kelly’s team says he waits by the phone list. The BOP system allows for a limited number of people on your contact list. He says he put names down. Old friends from Chicago. Producers he made rich. Artists he wrote for. People he thought were brothers.Most never accepted the call. Some numbers are disconnected. Some go to voicemail and never call back.”Abandonment is a different kind of prison,” he said in an audio message last year. “The walls I can see. But not knowing if anyone out there still cares about Robert – not R. Kelly the singer, but Robert – that is what keeps me up at night.”His attorneys have said his health has suffered. He has had surgery, he has complained about not getting proper care, he has said he feels isolated and targeted. The Bureau of Prisons denies any mistreatment and says all inmates receive adequate care.His fiancée Joycelyn Savage and a small circle of remaining supporters are the only ones who still visit or speak publicly for him. He says he reads every letter from fans – the few that make it through – and keeps them in a box under his bed.”I used to have 50 people in the studio with me just to keep me company. Now I would give anything for one person to just sit here for five minutes and not ask me for anything,” he said.
SAD NEWS: R. Kelly Speaks on Feeling Abandoned in Prison 💔
