Latest sentence offers R Kelly the prospect of being freed from jail one day

R Kelly could live long enough to be released from jail one day after his latest sentence (Yui Mok/PA)

A federal judge on Thursday rejected a call from prosecutors to keep R Kelly behind bars until he is 100, instead telling the Grammy Award-winning R&B singer he would serve all but one of his 20 years on child sex convictions simultaneously with a previous racketeering sentence.

Handed down in a courtroom in Kelly’s hometown of Chicago, the sentence means Kelly could make it out of prison alive, when he is about 80.