Damon Dash: Aaliyah wanted to 'stay away' from R. Kelly after marriage annulment

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Damon Dash has claimed Aaliyah wanted to R. Kelly to "stay the f**k away" from her after their marriage was annulled.

The singer - who tragically passed away in 2001 at the age of just 22 after being involved in a plane crash - was thought to have tied the knot with R. Kelly in 1994 when she was just 15 and he was 27, in an illegal marriage that was annulled by her parents the following year.

And now, Damon - who dated Aaliyah from 2000 until her death - has slammed the 'Ignition' hitmaker for treating Aaliyah as a "sacrificial lamb", and claimed the young star was "happy to be away" from the disgraced musician.

Damon - who is the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records - said in the upcoming documentary 'Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning': "Aaliyah was like the sacrificial lamb for all that, because she didn't deserve none of that. She was a good soul, a good girl, and she wasn't even so resentful. [She was like] 'Let that man live, but just keep him the f**k away from me', that's all she wanted. She was just happy to be away."

Kelly - who has recently been accused by several women of sexual harassment, some of whom claim they were underage at the time - and Aaliyah long denied they had ever been married, but Damon hit out at the way the situation was treated as "normal", despite Aaliyah's young age.

He added: "I know the whole story. I know it was the cover up and all of that. But how did that cover it up? It just made the conversation less crazy. Like oh, he married a child? So how you still ... that was the headline. That was like a rumour, that was something talked about like it was normal. It wasn't like 'Ew disgusting, he married a 13 year old', it was like 'Oh you married Aaliyah? She's 13.' "

And when the interviewer pointed out Aaliyah was 15 and not 13, Damon insisted he doesn't "have to be accurate" because the exact age doesn't change the fact that the 'Rock the Boat' singer "was a child".

He fumed: "Yeah but the 15 is 13, man. I don't have to be accurate because I don't care. 15, 13, anything under 18 is disgusting. You know what I mean? She was a child, bro."

'Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning' - which will air on Thursday (02.01.20) on Lifetime - is a sequel to 2019 documentary 'Surviving R. Kelly', which told the stories of R. Kelly's alleged sexual abuse victims.