A group of ministers and community leaders boarded the Carnival Magic liner from Miami to enjoy an eight-day cruise. According to Reverend Teri Peterson, of St John's Church, their trip was spoiled by R. Kelly's musical presence. The ship's DJ purposefully played the singer's music on repeat after the group expressed their discomfort with the playlist citing his sex scandal as the reason for their complaint.
"The DJ started to play R Kelly and was asked by our group to put it off because of everything surrounding the singer," Peterson said. "He refused and then began singing and dancing along and mocking us." The women left the club only to find themselves being mocked again later that night by the same man in a different part of the ship. Security was called on them when they complained to guest services about the blatant disrespect.
The group emailed the company and spoke to the ship's staff over a five-day period, trying to resolve the ongoing issue. They even had sit-down meetings to discuss the matter. Ultimately, the group received 100$ in onboard credit for the inconvenience. The meager sum was defended by the company as an "appropriate" solution.
The company refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing but still opted to remove the DJ from his post five days into the trip. "We had a small group of guests who took issue with two songs that our DJ was playing in a nightclub well after midnight," a spokesperson explained. "While we only play radio versions of popular music that have been sanitized so that offensive language has been removed, we do not make a habit of banning music as we have a broad cross-section of guests.
"Our shipboard team listened to the concerns of these guests and provided a goodwill gesture."
