Aaliyah, R. Kelly, and a ‘violent puzzle’ of alleged abuse

THIS month marks 20 years since the death of Aaliyah, who at age 22 was killed in a plane crash that sent international shockwaves as contemporary R&B lost one of its burgeoning stars.

The grim milestone on August 25 will fall just a week after testimony in the trial of R. Kelly is due to begin, court proceedings that have evoked Aaliyah’s name over her relationship with her one-time mentor.

For more than a quarter-century Kelly, now 54, has faced lurid accusations including child pornography, sex with minors, operating a sex cult and sexual battery.

And most discussions of the singer’s alleged pattern of abuse begin with his eyebrow-raising partnership with the artist born Aaliyah Haughton, who was 15 when the 27-year-old Kelly produced her debut album “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.”

Mere months later, on August 31, 1994, the pair were married in a union later annulled —