R. Kelly Trial: Fan Arrested, More Witnesses Identify Sex Tape Girl

An R. Kelly fan was arrested inside the courthouse yesterday as the third day of testimony continued at Kelly's child-pornography trial. Debra Triplett managed to sneak into the courthouse and set up shop next to a freight elevator reserved for the jurors. As the jurors exited the elevator, Triplett yelled "Free R. Kelly!" numerous times before her arrest. The judge in the Kelly case ruled Triplett was in contempt of court and now faces $50,000 bail and a hearing on June 25th. When the trial resumed, several more of family and friends positively identified the then-underage girl in the sex tape. The defense maintains that even if the girl in the tape is underage, the man performing the sex acts is not Kelly.

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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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