In early December, Terry Richardson teased a promo shot of the music video he directed for Lady Gaga’s single “Do What U Want” featuring R. Kelly. The video was killed, owing to “time constraints” and some excuses that Lady Gaga made on her Facebook wall — but according to “Page Six,” we all narrowly avoided wanting to throw acid in our own eyes.
A brief synopsis of the would-be-video: R. Kelly plays a doctor and Gaga his handicapped patient. She asks, “Will I ever be able to walk again?” Dr. Kelly’s prognosis is yes, so long as he can do whatever he wants with her body, which would seem to include impregnating her while she’s unconscious. What? Sounds like a malpractice suit waiting to happen; also, rape.
The intended release date coincided with a round of negative press for both Richardson and Kelly — the Village Voice released an interview that chronicled Kelly’s sexual assault of dozens of girls, and a fresh round of misconduct allegations against Richardson were all over the news. Between the video’s plot and its players, it no doubt would have resulted in a supernova of bad PR for Gaga.
Ugh. We always preferred the Christina Aguilera version of the song anyway.