Dame Dash Explains Why He Was in R. Kelly’s ‘Fiesta Remix’ Video

October 19, 2024 423 97 5

Dame Dash reveals why Aaliyah insisted he be in R. Kelly and Jay-Z ‘s “Fiesta (Remix)” music video despite her past relationship with Kelly.

Dame Dash Tells Why He Was in R. Kelly’s Music Video

On Monday (Oct. 14), a new episode of Dame’s American Nu Network podcast aired on YouTube. In one part of the episode, he reads a query from the multimedia brand Baller Alert asking the Roc-A-Fella cofounder why he appeared in Hov and Kelz’s music video for the 2001 song “Fiesta (Remix)” despite dating Aaliyah at the time and knowing her past with Kelly.

“When Jay was proceeding to still do business with R. Kelly, I went back and told Aaliyah, like, ‘Yo, they’re still doing projects. They got singles together. They are shooting videos. I don’t want to go to the videos. I don’t want to have any parts of it,” Dame says at the 38:55 mark of the video below. “And what she told me was that, ‘I don’t want to start any trouble that would probably trigger more attention on it. I just want to heal. I just want to leave this alone and get as far away from it as possible. I don’t want to hear about it. I’m really happy with our relationship in this moment and where it’s going. Just don’t be in any scene with him and don’t take any pictures with him.'”

“So, you can ask anybody that was on the set,” he continues. “I stood in the trailer. When it came time to do the shoot, I did my shots with Jay or whoever. I was not in one scene with R. Kelly. And you never seen me in a picture with R. Kelly. At least after I met Aaliyah.”

Late R&B songstress Aaliyah infamously developed an intimate relationship with R. Kelly in the mid-1990s and the couple was illegally married in 1994 when Aaliyah was only 15. The marriage was later annulled. Aaliyah and Dame began dating in 2000 and were reportedly still together when she died in August of 2001.

Jay-Z and R. Kelly worked closely together in the early 2000s, releasing two joint projects titled The Best of Both Worlds (2002) and Unfinished Business (2004). Jay and R. Kelly would have a falling out at the end of 2024, culminating with Kelly being pepper-sprayed by someone in Jigga’s camp during a joint concert at Madison Square Garden in New York.