By Fasuyi Tolulope Samuel
Disgraced R&B icon R. Kelly has been hospitalized following what his legal team describes as a near-fatal overdose—an incident they claim was no accident.
According to a court filing by his attorney, Beau Brindley, the 58-year-old singer collapsed in his solitary confinement cell at a North Carolina prison after being given a dangerously high dose of his anxiety medication.
Kelly, who is currently serving a 30-year sentence for sex trafficking and racketeering, was reportedly placed in isolation on June 10. That same day, prison staff administered additional doses of his prescribed medication.
Three days later, on June 13, Kelly reportedly felt faint and eventually lost consciousness. He was rushed to Duke University Hospital, where he remained under medical observation for two days before being returned to prison.
Brindley insists the overdose was intentional, not accidental. “This was no mistake,” he stated in the emergency motion. “It was a dose that jeopardized his life and nearly ended it.”
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The attorney claims that the actions of the prison staff were deliberate and constituted an attempt on the singer’s life. The court filing goes even further, alleging an elaborate murder plot involving prison officials.
Brindley claims that three staff members—including a warden and assistant warden—conspired to have Kelly killed by Mikeal Glenn Stine, a terminally ill inmate and reported member of the Aryan Brotherhood.
In a sworn affidavit, Stine claimed he had been approached in February 2023 and instructed to assassinate Kelly as part of a cover-up related to misconduct during the artist’s prosecution. However, after observing Kelly for several weeks, Stine said he changed his mind and eventually warned the singer of the plot.
“I told him the truth,” Stine said in his declaration. “I told him that I had been sent to kill him. I told him how and by who. And I told him his life was absolutely in danger.”
Brindley has now filed an urgent motion—his third—seeking Kelly’s release, arguing that the singer’s continued incarceration poses a direct threat to his life and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
“Time is now of the essence,” Brindley wrote. “It is with these breathtaking facts in mind that Mr. Kelly asks this Court for an extraordinary legal remedy: his release from Bureau of Prisons custody.”
