The minister of the nuptials between the 'I Believe I Can Fly' hitmaker and the late 'Try Again' singer has testified in court, offering some details of the secret wedding.
- Sep 3, 2021
AceShowbiz - Aaliyah and R. Kelly donned "matching jogging suits" for their hotel room wedding, the minister of the nuptials has testified in court.
Nathan Edmond, 73, took to the stand at the singer's racketeering trial in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday (01Sep21) to tell jurors that he officiated the wedding as a favour to a friend - and had no idea who the bride and groom were.
"I didn't think it was anyone special and I didn't understand it at all," Edmond said, according to The Daily Beast.
The pair each wore one leg of the joggers rolled up to the knee during the ceremony on 31 August, 1994, which lasted "about 10 minutes or less."
There were three other men in the hotel room at the time of the wedding, one of whom gave Edmond a non-disclosure agreement to sign, which "made me kind of chuckle," he is said to have testified.
"It wasn't worth the paper it was printed on," Edmond told the court, adding that the NDA "should have been a lot more airtight than that."
Edmond was named as the "elder" on the marriage license, which jurors were presented with in court on Wednesday, with the paperwork also stating that Aaliyah was 18. She was in fact just 15 at the time of the ceremony.
Prosecutors previously claimed that the "I Believe I Can Fly" star bribed an official to get a fake ID for Aaliyah after fearing she was pregnant. They are referring to the marriage as a key factor in their case against the star as they seek a conviction for racketeering, kidnapping and sexual exploitation of children.
Aaliyah died in 2001 aged 22.
