R. Kelly’s crisis manager Darrell Johnson steps down

The longtime crisis manager for R. Kelly announced on Monday that he is stepping down for “personal reasons.” Hours before his resignation, Johnson said in an interview that he “would not leave my daughter with anyone that’s accused of being a pedophile.”

“I should have worded it better,” Johnson told USA TODAY, adding that he meant to say, “I would leave my daughter with Kelly because I do not believe he is a pedophile.”

A short while later Johnson confirmed he no longer worked for Kelly as a crisis manager or spokesperson. “This has nothing to do with Mr. Kelly it’s for my (own) person(al) reasons,” he said in a statement to USA TODAY.

Johnson sat down with Gayle King on Monday’s “CBS This Morning,” saying that Kelly is not doing well in custody.

“I am concerned about Mr. Kelly,” he told King in the interview, saying that he would “assume at this point” that Kelly is under suicide watch. He said Kelly can’t busy himself with books in his cell because he can’t read or write.

Kelly has been held without bond at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago, after being arrested July 11 on separate indictments by the Northern District of Illinois and the Eastern District of New York, which is based in Brooklyn.