42 minutes (The Next Installment) Trapped in the Closet is a musical soap opera series by American R&B singer, songwriter and producer R. Kelly, with 33 "chapters" released sporadically from 2005 to 2012.

Written, produced, and directed by Kelly, the series tells a story of a one-night stand which sets off a chain of events, gradually revealing a greater web of lies, sex and deceit—a multitude of intertwined love triangles, extramarital affairs, and infidelities begin to unfold.

Following the success and popularity of the Trapped in the Closet song series, R. Kelly lip synched a "new chapter" at an appearance at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards.

The material previewed by Kelly at the MTV Video Music Awards revealed an early version of some parts of the twelfth chapter in the series.

On December 21, 2011, Kelly told TMZ that he had written thirty-two more chapters, and was seeking investors in order to continue the saga.

[6] Kelly claimed that the song's dark and moody instrumental was influenced by his frustrations and depression following his removal from the ill-fated Best of Both Worlds tour with Jay-Z in October 2004.

She begins talking about friends of hers named Tina and Roxanne and also mentions Chuck and Rufus, which confuses Sylvester.

He sees the back door broken in and mistakes the laughter for abuse and bursts into the bedroom, gun drawn.

A relieved Sylvester and Gwendolyn invite Rosie in while James snatches his gun back from a bewildered Twan's hands and leaves.

Just as he opens it, the video suddenly stops and the narrator exits out of the kitchen pantry and, breaking the fourth wall, tells the audience that the man, hiding in the cabinet, is a midget.

Bridget then tells Sylvester she will drop the gun if James does not hurt the midget, whose name is revealed as "Big Man", a stripper at a club called Dixie's.

Rufus then calms them down and tries to resolve the matter but neither Cathy or Chuck listen, as they continue arguing, even as the phone rings.

Back at the restaurant, Sylvester notices the waitress but can't think from where he knows her, until he sees her name tag which says "Tina."

Roxanne tells Sylvester that a high Twan was swerving on the road and cutting up on the both of them, even turning his music loud playing "Mary Jane" and screaming "I'm Rick James, bitch!"

In the interrogation room, the police tell the women that Twan blamed the drug deal on them in order to save his own skin.

Stunned at the news of Roxanne and Tina being lovers, a frustrated Sylvester points his gun at the both of them, but soon stops because of his tolerance to lesbians, while Twan kept egging him to shoot them.

The scene then shifts to Rufus' church where he is leading the worship song, "Jesus Will Work It Out", with Reverend Mosley James Evans and the Peace Within Choir.

Randolph hid in the closet and unintentionally overheard the conversation seen in chapter eighteen among Chuck, Rufus and Cathy.

Bridget gets an offer that might make her famous, Twan is proffered money in exchange for an unknown service, and most of the rest of the cast also get a mysterious phone call.

Meanwhile, Doctor Perry tries to convince Cathy to go back inside the room and console Rufus as well as make amends.

Rufus was tricked into coming on the show by the staff; he believed he was there to talk about the church and the community but he is bombarded by questions about his personal life.

Randolph can't sleep and wakes Rosie up, and asks if she meant it when she called him Mr. Can't-Get-It-Up in Chapter 13.

The chapter continues with Lucius explaining the mysterious phone calls he's getting and his need for money and a place to sleep.

After assuring that they weren't followed, Sylvester reveals to Twan that they're standing outside of the back entrance to the show that the cast has been doing confessionals for, Out of the Closet with Larry.

Roger Cormier wrote that "when journalists write about...Trapped in the Closet, they tend to throw out a high-brow literary reference", but then described it as "a subtlety free, it's-so-dumb-it's-brilliant work of art" comparable to "Laurence Sterne's 18th-century novel The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman [sic]".

[27] Writing for Flagpole, Hillary Brown linked Trapped in the Closet to the Renaissance concept of sprezzatura and compared it to the work of Stendhal and John Ashbery.

"[29] Chuck Klosterman writing for The Guardian called it a cult classic and wrote: "Describing Trapped in the Closet to anyone who hasn't seen it themselves is virtually impossible, simply because there's no other art to compare it with (it falls somewhere between a parody of musical theatre, a soap opera from the late 1970s, and a BET version of the Red Shoe Diaries).

"[31] Prior to Kelly's conviction of sexual abuse in 2021, the first 22 chapters of the Trapped in the Closet series were released via VEVO, where they appeared for free ad-supported viewing.

Eight days after Kelly was found guilty on multiple counts of sex trafficking, racketeering and violating the Mann Act on September 27, 2021, his YouTube channel was terminated; all visuals for this series are no longer available to watch on the platform.

[38][39] R. Kelly stated in an interview with Rap-Up TV that he was, at the time, working on a movie version of Trapped in the Closet that would have been released to theaters.