Celebrity News:

An artist's rendering of the courtroom in the R. Kelly trial as the videotape at the center of the case is shown to the jury during the first day of testimony. Prosecutors say the tape depicts Kelly and a teenage girl having sex; the defense denies Kelly was in the video, and the person whom prosecutors say is the girl has denied she was in the video.

As R. Kelly toured the country and sold millions of records, Cook County prosecutors spent six years waiting for the moment that came Tuesday when they stood in front of a jury and accused the R&B superstar of damaging a young girl's life for his own sexual perversion.

Though forced to admit the alleged victim won't testify on its behalf, the prosecution passionately outlined a case based on a 27-minute tape in which authorities say the Grammy winner engages in a variety of sexual acts with a girl as young as 13.

"It will unfold before you frame by disgusting frame," Assistant State's Attorney Shauna Boliker said in her opening statements. "You don't have to put the pieces together because he did it for you."

Kelly's attorneys—who have spent years denouncing the tape and fighting to keep a jury from seeing it—countered the prosecution's allegations with a stunning embrace of the video. In a dramatic opening that matched the prosecution's passion line for line, they said the same VHS tape that spurred a 14-count indictment will ultimately set Kelly free.