Lady Gaga to re-release ARTPOP without R. Kelly

Following the overwhelming critics about her past collaboration with singer R. Kelly (I Believe I Can Fly), Lady Gaga decided to re-release her 4th studio album ARTPOP removing the song from the tracklist.

In 2013 Lady Gaga released her collaboration with R. Kelly called "Do What You Want (With My Body)" as promo single from her album ARTPOP. The song was produced by DJ White Shadow and talks about how Gaga doesn't care about media trashing her body image publicly. Following its huge success after the release on iTunes, Lady Gaga announced that the song would have replaced Venus as second single. The music video with Kelly was shoot and directed by Terry Richardson, but it was never released after Robert's rape accusations.

Following the release of the Lifetime series Surviving R. Kelly, which documented the sexual abuse allegations against the singer, Gaga made a statement announcing that the song would be removed from streaming platforms from January 2019.

Quote

I stand behind these women 1000%, believe them, know they are suffering and in pain, and feel strongly that their voices should be heard and taken seriously. What I am hearing about the allegations against R. Kelly is absolutely horrifying and indefensible. As a victim of sexual assault myself, I made both the song and video at a dark time in my life, my intention was to create something extremely defiant and provocative because I was angry and still hadn’t processed the trauma that had occurred in my own life. The song is called 'Do What U Want (With My Body),' I think it's clear how explicitly twisted my thinking was at the time. If I could go back and have a talk with my younger self I'd tell her to go through the therapy I have since then, so that I could understand the confused post-traumatic state that I was in- or if therapy was not available to me or anyone in my situation-to seek help, and speak as openly and honestly as possible about what we’ve been through. I can't go back, but I can go forward and continue to support women, men, and people of all sexual identities, and of all races, who are victims of sexual assault. I have demonstrated my stance on this issue and others many times throughout my career. I share this not to make excuses for myself, but to explain. Til it happens to you , you don’t know how it feels. But I do know how I feel now. I intend to remove this song off of iTunes and other streaming platforms and will not be working with him again. I’m sorry, both for my poor judgment when I was young, and for not speaking out sooner. I love you.

ARTPOP will be released again on November 11th without Do What You Want.

A version of the song featuring Christina Aguilera, released a few months after the original is still available on streaming services.