Finally facing charges on Friday that he videotaped himself having sex with an underage girl, R. Kelly will be protected from the scathing media, which foolishly thinks it has a right to report on a public figure. Chicago area papers and the Associated Press filed emergency motions to unseal court records, but the Illinois Supreme Court has shot down their requests…

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BAD NEWS FOR R. KELLY A woman will testify at R. Kelly's upcoming child pornography trial that she had a three-way with the alleged victim, who was a young teenager at the time but maintains it is not her in the tape, and R. Kelly. As crazy as it may seem after all of this time, the trial is actually starting soon. Jury selection begins Friday. [MTV]

MEDIA WANTS GAG ORDER LIFTED Attorneys for the Chicago Tribune,, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Associated Press are not happy people right now. Arguing that Kelly's celebrity status gives media the right to have access, they want the judge in R. Kelly's trial to give their clients access to the pre-trial hearing transcripts, which are under gag order. If the media is granted access, maybe they can finally explain why he hasn't gone to trial yet. [EUR]

• Gary Coleman and his young wife are already on Divorce Court. Probably because he keeps throwing things at her. [Bossip]

• Isaiah Washington has resorted to starring in movies with Bow Wow. That's the price you gotta pay for the careless use of gay slurs. [BV]

• How is T.I. going to finish his gazillion community service hours if schools (understandably) don't want him giving speeches to students? [SOHH]

• Orlando Brown, the That's So Raven star who was supposedly missing, was actually just off pouting somewhere. [SP]

• It seems like much of the listening public has endless patience and tolerance for R. Kelly's criminal antics because they love his music so much, but "Hairbraider" has got to change that at least a little. [C&D]

• The Arizona legislature wants to get rid of race-based student groups — Black student unions, Asian students associations, etc. — at state universities and community colleges. Says the architect of the proposal: “This bill basically says, ‘You’re here. Adopt American values,’” State Rep. John Kavanagh, a Republican, told The Arizona Republic. “‘If you want a different culture, then fine, go back to that culture." Nice. [OHN]

MORE OF THE SAME FROM R. KELLY R. Kelly just recorded a song about having sex with the woman who braids his hair. It's called — wait for it — "Hairbraider."

Sample lyrics: "She like me/ She sexy/ She freaky/ And on top of that she smoke weed …She says that the style that i want is gonna take her like all night/ Well, thats cool with me so let's get it/ How convenient because when she's done I'm gonna hit it like all night." It's not good, guys. [C&D]

BOO HOO R. Kelly's been relatively quiet about his beef with Ne-Yo, who was very publicly unhappy with the "Pied Piper" after he was unceremoniously booted from their tour, presumably because his set was more popular than the pouty headliner's. But watch out, Ne-Yo! Here comes R. Kelly with the diss track…

• R. Kelly says his publicist knew he was dating her daughter all along. [TMZ]

• A dead prez concert ends in violence after a fight in the audience turns into a riot. [XXL]

• For some African AIDS patients, times are a-changing. [LAT]

• There's no mercy for men who murder their pregnant wives. None! [CNN]

Happy Weekend!

George Daniels, the music-retailer husband of Regina Daniels, who publicly and scandalously quit her job as R. Kelly's publicist amidst rumors that he had an affair with her daughter with George, decided to go on the air and publicly announce that R. Kelly and his daughter, a college student, really did have an affair. Nobody was really thinking about this anymore, which is probably why dear old dad decided it was time to make an official announcement.

"He crossed the line with my daughter," Daniels said during an interview with Los Angeles radio station KJLH. "It didn't get to the extreme of that [sex tape] video or else I wouldn't be here, if you know what I'm talking about."

Maxine, who was 21 when the relationship occurred, is still in college at Northern Illinois University and "doing very well," Daniels tells KJLH's morning show host Guy Black. Though his daughter was of legal age, he says Kelly still took advantage of her.

"When you're 21, and if you've been there already like I've been many years ago, you're still 15 to 16 mentally. You're vulnerable," Daniels explained.

Allow me to channel young Maxine Daniels for a moment: "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, DAD??? ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE????" When you let your impressionable daughter hang out with a megastar with a well-known penchant for young girls, it should definitely occur to you ahead of time that this is something that can happen. [EUR]

Way back in 2004, a very pouty R. Kelly sued Jay-Z over their Best of Both Worlds tour, which went horribly awry when (a.) one of Jay's entourage maced R. Kelly (to hear R. tell it) or (b.) R. Kelly got pissy and jealous when Jay-Z got more attention and decided to sue to detract attention from his child molestation case (to hear Jay-Z tell it.) Either way, he's no stranger to concert tours ending in lawsuits. That's where Ne-Yo comes in. He's suing R. Kelly for booting him off of the Double Up tour, because, Ne-Yo says, Kelly was pissy and jealous of Ne-Yo's popularity. I'm sensing a pattern here. [AHH]

• Remy Ma is penniless and forbidden from going on a European tour. And at Christmastime, too! [E!]

• The judge's Christmas present to R. Kelly was a May '08 court date. He's had more than enough time to prepare a strong case, right? [SOHH]

• New Orleans cops were not in the Christmas spirit yesterday. And now the plan to bulldoze the city's projects is going full speed ahead. [AP]

• Christmas came early for the newest Real World cast, which is shockingly, primarily black. [CL]

• Vogue named Venus Williams one of the best-dressed celebrities of 2007. Serena just threw away her Christmas gift and vowed to whip her ass at Wimbledon next year. [C&D]

No ill-timed, Utah traffic stops got in the way of R. Kelly's Chicago court appearance this morning. He managed to make it to the courthouse about 20 minutes ahead of schedule, perhaps to make extra sure the judge wouldn't issue a warrant for his arrest — something he threatened to do after Kelly missed yesterday's scheduled appearance. The judge was expected to set a court date, which, if history has taught us anything, will probably be sometime around 2015/2016. [FOX]

R. Kelly and his lawyers are full of excuses now that a Chicago judge has issued a bench warrant for his arrest. His lawyer said he was detained on his tour bus in Utah for some reason or another and had to check into a motel and so on and so on and the judge was like, save it for someone who cares, I've been lenient enough with this child molester as it is. But then he promptly backed down and is holding off on the warrant until Kelly's next scheduled court appearance tomorrow morning. So it seems the leniency is limitless.

Protesters in Los Angeles have a major problem with R. Kelly and his Double Up tour rolling into town, mainly because the show is being held at The Forum, a venue owned by Faithful Central Church.

I doubt the people at the church are as concerned with R. Kelly's lyrics as they are with the money the concert will bring in. I guess the protesters don't understand that money has never committed statutory rape and filmed it nor has it offered to feel on a woman's booty nor has it compared a woman to a jeep because it wanted to ride her. Child pornographers need concert venues, too.

When R. Kelly's long-time publicist sent out a press release intimating she'd severed ties with R. Kelly over some shadiness, I said it "screamed scandal." To be sure, it didn't take a genius to figure that out, particularly considering the man in question, but still. The scandal has arrived.

Regina Daniels dissolved her professional relationship with R. Kelly because he slept with her 19-year-old daughter, a family friend he'd known since she was four. If this is true, one can only hope and pray that he waited to unleash his dirtiness on an innocent girl until she was of legal age. But I don't think any of us would be surprised if it comes out that he didn't. [AHH]

Ne-Yo spoke to Ed Lover recently about getting kicked off the R.Kelly tour. And while the official explanation is that there was some contractual issue, Ne-Yo says the real reason is that R.Kelly is a diva who takes all the dressing rooms for himself and forbids anyone from being in a hallway when he walks down it. Well, that and the fact that he's a big hater. Neyo pretty much sums it up with this quote:

"It probably didn't help matters that…people had a lot of very positive things to say about my portion of the show and not as many about his portion of the show."

[RTNY]