R. Kelly owes more than $3.8 million in back taxes

That's on top of a separate lien filed by the IRS in 2019 over $1.8 million owed on two previous tax bills - $648,998.25 for 2013 and another $1,229,739.18 for 2016 - which is still active and unpaid.

The total amount from the two liens is $3,813,772.31.

Kelly is due to face trial for sex trafficking and racketeering next month but he was recently hit with problems in his case after three of his lawyers announced they were seeking to leave his legal team.

In June, Chicago-based lawyers Steve Greenberg and Michael Leonard asked to withdraw from the case, but it was later claimed by one of the remaining attorneys that they were both fired before they could quit.

And the third lawyer, New Jersey attorney Douglas Anton, was revealed shortly afterwards to no longer be part of the team for the New York case.

Greenberg – who was due to serve on the defence for Kelly’s second court case in Chicago, Illinois, where he is facing charges including child pornography – wrote in a letter to the judge on the case: "Our reasons for withdrawal are significant and it is impossible, in our belief, for us to be able to continue to properly represent Mr. Kelly under the current circumstances.”

And Anton has told Billboard he withdrew from the New York case late last year, though not under the same circumstances” as Greenberg and Leonard.

The lawyer is still representing Kelly and taking part in his defence “behind the scenes,” but not as an attorney of record.

The 54-year-old musician has already had both of his court cases delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with his Illinois trial now due to begin on 13 September.