R. Kelly was nightmare boss who flipped out over male tour guide at Disney World, employee testifies
NEW YORK — Not only was R. Kelly someone who controlled women’s every movement when on his property, he was also a nightmare boss who fined workers for minor mistakes, a former employee testified Thursday.
Tom Arnold, who officially worked as the “Sex Me” star’s studio manager from 2004 to 2011, told jurors about Kelly’s system of docking pay when employees messed up — and how it ultimately made him quit his job.
The final straw came in October 2011, Arnold testified, when Kelly fined him a full week’s salary for booking a male tour guide at Disney World.
“It needed to be a woman,” Arnold said on the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court.
He said that the Disney World trip came together at the last minute so he had to scramble to book a tour guide.
“I took the first person I could get. It was a gentleman,” Arnold said.
When Kelly’s tour bus arrived at the most magical place on earth and he saw the male tour guide, he canceled the whole VIP experience, Arnold said.
Kelly docked Arnold $1,500, giving him his check for the week — $0.
Arnold quit.
“My wife wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy. Rob wasn’t happy,” he said, explaining his decision to leave the boss he’d known since 1998.
Arnold was fined on other occasions for forgetting to bring Kelly lunch, sleeping through a call from Kelly and buying a cheap sweatband for a female guest without Kelly’s permission, he testified.
Once, the “Ignition” singer became irate when someone ate his donuts, Arnold said.
“We were all fined,” Arnold recalled.
Kelly is on trial for his alleged role at the top of an elaborate scheme that trafficked underage girls and young women from his concerts for illegal sex. He forced his victims to call him “daddy” and locked them in rooms for days at a time, delivering vicious spankings as punishment for breaking his rules, prosecutors and accusers say.
He also knowingly gave herpes to some of his victims and had a Chicago public assistance worker bribed to make a fake ID for singer Aaliyah — who was 15 at the time — so the two could be married, according to the feds.
Arnold worked at one of Kelly’s Chicago studios, then began working at the Chocolate Factory, a studio located in Kelly’s Olympia Fields home in 2004.
Arnold is not to be confused with the actor of the same name who starred on the “Roseanne” TV sitcom.
Arnold also detailed Kelly’s rules regarding female guests, saying employees were not allowed to look at the women and girls while on his sprawling property in the Chicago suburbs.
When Arnold drove female guests, he was instructed to flip up the rearview mirror to avoid eye contact. Everyone who worked for Kelly knew that rule, Arnold said.
Arnold also testified that members of Kelly’s team would be equipped at concerts, malls and afterparties with pieces of paper with the singer’s number so they could give them out to girls or women at a moment’s notice.
“It would be asked of me to do so fairly regularly,” he said.
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