Lady Gaga scrapped the video for her duet with R. Kelly, “Do What U Want,” earlier this year, blaming time constraints and “those who have betrayed me.” But she may have dodged a bullet by not releasing the sexually charged clip.
The raunchy video starring Gaga and Kelly was directed by controversial photographer Terry Richardson and depicts racy scenes between the singers. Its release would have coincided with heated attention focused on scandals involving both Richardson and Kelly.
According to our source, Kelly plays a doctor in the video, with Gaga acting as his patient in scenes that riff on her real-life hip injury last year.
Gaga asks Kelly, “Will I ever be able to walk again?” The singer replies, “Yes, if you let me do whatever I want with your body.” The not-so-good doctor then adds, “I’m putting you under, and when you wake up, you’re going to be pregnant.” Alrighty, then!
We’re told the video was shot in September for a December release. After weeks of delays, it was mysteriously scrapped, and in January, Gaga posted an angry message on her website, blaming bad management and a tight schedule.
But we’re told there were other factors. Around the same time, Richardson was accused of sexual misconduct on his sets by several models, and an online petition asking big brands to stop hiring him was launched on change.org. (Richardson denies the allegations against him in a New York magazine cover story this week.)
Kelly, meantime, in December faced backlash over an in-depth Village Voice interview with veteran Chicago writer Jim DeRogatis, in which he chronicled “stomach-churning” sexual assault suits against Kelly in the 1990s, saying there were “dozens of girls — not one, not two, dozens — with harrowing lawsuits.”
A source told us, “Gaga had a video directed by an alleged sexual predator, starring another sexual predator. With the theme, ‘I’m going to do whatever I want with your body’? It was literally an ad for rape.” Reps for Gaga and Richardson didn’t comment. Kelly’s rep didn’t get back to us.