R. Kelly Trial: Relatives Testify Girl on Tape Isn't Their Kin

The R. Kelly trial resumed yesterday as the defense began their case by calling three relatives of the girl who is supposedly on the sex tape to the stand. An aunt, uncle and cousin of the girl all testified that the girl on the tape "definitely wasn't" their relative, even when a photo of the girl was juxtaposed next to a still from the video. So far, seven family members have been called to the stand, with four siding with the prosecution. Kelly's defense also worked to negate the testimony of Lisa Van Patten, the third member of the supposed threesome on the tape, by calling to the stand a law clerk who testified that Van Patten's fiancé said she wouldn't take the stand against Kelly for $350,000.

Also, Chicago Sun-Times music journalist Jim DeRogatis took the stand outside the jury's presence yesterday but declined to answer any questions, citing his First Amendment right to protect his sources.The judge rejected that argument but allowed DeRogatis to plead the Fifth until he gets immunity from child-pornography charges for copying the tape.

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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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