R. Kelly Has a Request for Trump

R. Kelly is now looking to the White House for a break, USA Today reports. The 58-year-old singer has filed a clemency petition with the Justice Department asking President Trump to commute his 31-year federal sentence. Kelly is imprisoned in North Carolina after 2021 and 2022 convictions in New York and Chicago on racketeering, sex trafficking, child pornography, and enticement charges; appeals have so far gone nowhere.

His attorney previously alleged federal officials plotted to have Kelly killed and administered excessive medication, claims a judge effectively rejected when denying an emergency bid for home confinement in June 2025. That lawyer has called Trump "the only person with the courage and the power" to intervene; the Guardian reports he's been publicly lobbying the POTUS for more than a year. Kelly, who has long denied the allegations, remains behind bars while the clemency request is reviewed. If he is not granted clemency, his release is expected in 2045, CBS News reports.