Chance the Rapper apologizes for ‘taking this long to speak out’ about R. Kelly

Chance the Rapper took to Twitter on Saturday to try and set the record straight about his comments featured during the final installment of the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly.”

In the finale, in which the Chicago rapper is shown during an interview with Jamilah Lemieux, Chance talks about his collaboration with R. Kelly on the 2015 song “Summer in Paradise,” admitting “making a song with R. Kelly was a mistake.” But it was his comments about not valuing the accusers’ stories “because they were black women” that ignited a Twitter firestorm.

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On Twitter Saturday, the rapper reiterated his claim that his words were taken out of context and made it clear where he stands on the issue, writing in part: “I apologize to all his survivors for working with him and for taking this long to speak out.”

Chance also posted the full interview clip on Twitter, in which he says, in part: “We’re programmed to really be hypersensitive to black male oppression … But black women are exponentially [a] higher oppressed and violated group of people just in comparison to the whole world. Maybe I didn’t care because I didn’t value the accusers’ stories because they were black women. Usually, n—-s that get in trouble for s— like this on their magnitude of celebrity, it’s light-skinned women or white women. That’s when it’s a big story. I’ve never really seen any pictures of R. Kelly’s accusers.”

Lemieux also took to social media about the comments, tweeting that in her interview, Chance “spoke clearly and unequivocally in support of BW and the victims.”