‘Surviving R. Kelly’ Documentary on Lifetime Details Sex Abuse Accusations R. Kelly

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

For more than two decades, the R&B singer Robert Kelly, who performs as R. Kelly, has faced accusations of sexual misconduct and abuse.

This week, a six-part documentary on Lifetime is taking an expansive look at the allegations against Mr. Kelly, a chart-topping artist whose history has invited extra scrutiny in recent years.

The series, “ Surviving R. Kelly ,” includes testimony from several women who accuse the singer of abuse, as well as commentary from Mr. Kelly’s critics, including the founder of the #MeToo movement, Tarana Burke, and the singer John Legend.

The six episodes, each an hour long, cover the long history of allegations against Mr. Kelly. They feature women who described being controlled or abused by him, often when they were teenagers, as well as associates and relatives of the singer.

Mr. Kelly has continuously denied the allegations against him.

The documentary has become the subject of widespread attention and fierce debate on social media, with many expressing gratitude to the women who continue to tell their stories.

“I wish that he would experience a kind of social death, and that people who still vociferously declare him innocent — or their favorite artist, or worthy of having his work separated from who he is — that they are denied that,” said dream hampton, an executive producer of the documentary.

The six parts of the series were scheduled over three days of broadcast, from Thursday through Saturday. The third and fourth episodes focused on Mr. Kelly’s 2008 child pornography trial and the sex tape at its center. The fifth and sixth episodes examine more recent allegations and follow parents who were trying to free their daughters from Mr. Kelly’s influence, Ms. hampton said.

While some fans of Mr. Kelly still defend him, many critics say that he has escaped the consequences of his actions for far too long.

“No one cared because we were black girls,” the writer Mikki Kendall said in the documentary.