New York — R&B superstar R. Kelly denied allegations he sexually abused women and girls in his first public comments since being indicted last month.

"I didn't do this stuff. This not me," Kelly told "CBS This Morning", saying he was "fighting" for his life in an interview to air Wednesday. Excerpts were released Tuesday.

He dismissed the allegations against him as rumors.

"Whether they're old rumors, new rumors, future rumors, not true," said Kelly, who became upset and emotional during the interview.

Kelly, 52, pleaded not guilty late last month in Chicago to 10 counts of aggravated criminal sex abuse.

He spent three nights behind bars and was released after coming up with $100,000, 10 percent of the $1 million bail set in court.

"People are going back to my past, OK? That's exactly what they're doing. They're going back to the past and they trying to add all of this stuff now to that. To make all this stuff that's going on now feels real to people," Kelly said, according to the CBS transcript of the interview. — AFP