R. Kelly follow-up show leads to rise in calls to sexual assault hotline

New installments of Lifetime’s documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly led to a 40 percent increase in calls Friday and Saturday to the National Sexual Assault Hotline, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, which administers the counseling resource, reports the Huffington Post. Lifetime partnered with RAINN for the follow-up series, “Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning,” which aired Thursday through Saturday, featuring the phone number on-screen to encourage sexual assault survivors and their loved ones to seek help. “It’s amazing to know the documentary has encouraged important and necessary conversations to happen and we are extremely proud of our survivors for their courage, who by standing up for themselves, stand for so much more,” Brie Miranda Bryant, Lifetime’s senior vice president for unscripted programing, said in a statement Tuesday. The three-part series was a follow-up to the network’s acclaimed January 2019 Series, which detailed the years of sexual assault allegations against R&B singer R. Kelly, featuring the stories of more than a dozen women. The serial allegations, which Kelly has denied, included child sexual abuse and holding women and girls against their will in a sex “cult.” Last week’s follow-up series explored the impact of the initial series, and told the stories of women who have come forward in the last year. Despite decades of allegations, Kelly continued to produce music and perform concerts until Lifetime’s 2019 series, which brought renewed attention from the public and from law enforcers. Kelly is now in a Chicago jail awaiting trial on federal and state sex crimes charges.