Find out everything you need to know, and everything you never knew about Baby Girl, The Princess Of R&B, Aaliyah.
The hosts points out that after releasing two singles, Back & Forth and At Your Best, Aaliyah kind of disappeared. It was rumored that the reason Aaliyah disappeared from the media for a few months was because her family had found out about her marriage to R Kelly and her alleged pregnancy and went crazy! So it took a few months for them to get the marriage annulled and to separate Aaliyah from R Kelly.
I want yall to keep in mind that the Video Soul Gold interview that aired was an edited interview, so we only saw part of what went on, we didn’t see the behind the scenes footage. Well, a few months after this interview, the male host interviews Aaliyah again and he reveals that Aaliyah was barely allowed to talk to him during the whole filming of this interview. So apparently R Kelly was keeping her from talking and socializing with this host behind the scenes while they were there at the BET studio, just like he keeps his other women in his home now from talking to other men…. R Kelly probably saw this guy as a threat since he’s nice looking, and he didn’t want Aaliyah talking to him. We’re going to examine that follow-up interview in a minute. But first let’s take a look at the legal actions Aaliyah’s family took after finding out about her and R Kelly’s marriage.
By taking this particular position R Kelly was asserting that he was in control of the situation. And that he was in control of Aaliyah.
Now let’s get into their body language. When they sit down you can see R Kelly positions his body in a very open manner. He spreads his legs wide open and he leans back and stretches his arms back onto the back of the sofa that they’re sitting on. And he nearly puts his hands behind his head, he is so relaxed. Now you might think that this open body posture meant that R. Kelly was open to the interview questions. But actually, by stretching out all of his limbs R Kelly is making his body appear larger and take up more space than it would normally and it’s actually a way of demonstrating control, not openness. This position is known as The Cowboy by body language experts.
Later in this interview around the 7 minute mark the host asks Aaliyah about her family and if they are always with her. And Aaliyah goes from an open relaxed position to one with her legs crossed. Again, crossing legs is an indication of submission. And Aaliyah dramatically crossed her legs as soon as the host asked about her family. You see her pat her leg with one hand and then cross her legs, which made it kind of a dramatic gesture. Aaliyah crossing her legs so dramatically indicates that she was now being submissive as well as closing herself off. You can see she not only crosses her legs but also brings her whole body inward as if she’s hugging herself. This also indicates her uneasiness with questions about her family always being with her. Looking back, we now know that her family was NOT always with her and judging by Aaliyah’s closed off body language, that’s not a topic that she felt comfortable discussing.