R. Kelly Trial: Ex-Assistant Identifies Kelly, Girl on Video

The R. Kelly child pornography trial resumed yesterday after the long Memorial Day weekend with several more witnesses taking the stand to identify the singer and the young girl in the sex tape. Most notable of the witnesses was Kelly's former assistant Lindsay Perryman, who spent seven years working for the star. Perryman testified that Kelly was a great boss, that she thought "highly" of him and that she'd never seen him act inappropriately with females. That being said, she was "110 percent sure" that the couple in the video was Kelly and the girl at the heart of the trial. Perryman knew the girl well — she testified that she would often see her show up to Kelly's studio carrying a pillow and an overnight bag, and as her job functions expanded she often facilitated liaisons between the two. Despite the fact that the girl was often coming from school to meet with Kelly, Perryman never suspected any inappropriate behavior. Perryman also acknowledged seeing Lisa Van Allen, the supposed third partner in the alleged threesome on the video, who is expected to take the stand today.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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