Cut The Mullet

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 21, 2005 5:46PM

Some people never live down a truly awful hairstyle, especially if they’ve made the mistake of posing for photographs with it. Chicagoist has rocked some ill-advised coiffures in its earlier days but was smart enough to stay away from cameras, video or otherwise. In R. Kelly’s case (literally), one of the most famous bad haircuts of all time may be his undoing. And it’s not even his.

In a preliminary hearing yesterday, the best friend of the girl in the alleged R. Kelly sex tape testified that the girl was 14 at the time the tape was made. The friend testified she is able to pinpoint the girl’s age due to her mullet haircut that both were sporting in the summer of 1999 though she added they wore the same ‘do the year before as well....in eighth grade. Bleeacchhh.

The question of when the videotape was made is a crucial one as Kelly attempts to construct an alibi for the time he was supposedly engaged in the videotaped acts. Prosecutors have said the tape was made between January 1998 and November of 2000. Clues to the date of the tape were provided by music videos for the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys playing on a television in the background of the sex tape. Chicagoist was surprised to learn that someone with an ego as large as Kelly’s didn’t just play his own music and videos while laying it down in the bedroom. Then again that’s what Chicagoist was listening to when we were 14 so maybe R. was trying to put the girl at ease...before he committed statutory rape. Allegedly.

The judge in the case instructed prosecutors that they’ll need more than an old episode of TRL to bolster their timeline and if they’re unable to narrow it down, he’ll throw the case out based on lack of evidence.

If we were R. Kelly’s defense team, we’d start arguing that the presence of a mullet dates the video at around 1985 and start trying to pin this case on one of the Jackson brothers (Jermaine, start crafting an alibi now).