The Celebrity Truth

The ongoing dispute between singers R. Kelly and Ne-Yo heated up on Wednesday (January 2), when Kelly issued a press release denying that he fired Ne-Yo as the opening act on his latest concert tour, describing himself as "confident enough in his own abilities to share the stage with enormously talented people".

Ne-Yo, who’s real name is Shaffer Smith, was the opening act on R. Kelly’s ‘Double Up’ tour and was allegedly fired without warning in November 2007.

According to papers filed by Smith’s company Compound Entertainment against the tour promoter, Rowe Entertainment, in the Los Angeles Superior Court, "Audience reaction to Smith was strong and, according to many reporters, critics, and fans, the reaction to Smith [was] at least as positive as the reaction to the featured act, R. Kelly.

"On November 19, 2007, without warning and without any valid basis to do so, Rowe fired Smith from the Tour. Plaintiff’s are informed and believe, and thereon allege, that an unknown representative of R. Kelly urged Rowe to terminate Smith from the Tour, given the audience’s and critics’ more favorable reaction to Smith than the reaction to R. Kelly."

A press release issued by Kelly Mullin’s, Kelly’s representative on Wednesday states:

"The idea that R. Kelly had anything to do with Ne-Yo being dropped from the Double Up tour is just plain silly. As we said at the time, Ne-Yo was dropped because of a contractual dispute with the tour promoter, and in fact Ne-Yo is not suing Kelly but only the promoter.

"Ne-Yo may think blaming the situation on R. Kelly will improve his chances of collecting from the promoter, but if he does, he is sadly mistaken. Anyone remotely familiar with R. Kelly knows he is confident enough in his own abilities to be happy to share the stage with enormously talented people — the more talented, the better."

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Photo courtesy of Jive. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 3rd, 2008 at 12:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.