R. Kelly didn’t show up to court because he can’t read: lawyers

R. Kelly’s new lawyers say the embattled R&B superstar didn’t show up to hearings in a civil sex abuse case because he can’t read.

The Chicago Sun-Times first reported that, on April 23, a Cook County judge entered a default judgment against Kelly after he and his lawyer didn’t respond to summonses in a sex abuse lawsuit filed against him in February.

Kelly was served in early March while he was being held in the Cook County Jail over his failure to pay more than $160,000 in child support to his ex-wife, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.

“The defendant does not recall being served,” Kelly’s new attorneys, Raed Shalabi and Zaid Abdallah, said in a filing dated April 26. “The Defendant suffers from a learning disability that adversely affects his ability to read, in essence he cannot.”