CONVICTED sex offender R. Kelly’s daughter has accused her dad of sexually abusing her as a child, detailing the allegations in an emotional new interview.
Buku Abi, who was born Joanne Kelly, claims the disgraced singer abused her in Illinois in the early 2000s.
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The 26-year-old made the allegations, which Kelly denies, in TVEI Network’s new two-part documentary, R Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey.
“He was my everything” she says of her dad in the doc.
“For a long time, I didn’t even want to believe that it happened. I didn’t know that even if he was a bad person that he would do something to me.
“I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom.”
Abi says she told her mom Andrea in 2009 when she was 10, and the pair went to file the allegations in an anonymous police report in Illinois.
However, they were told cops would not be able to help as they had “waited to long” to speak out.
Until 2019, prosecutors had a maximum of 10 years to bring charges against a suspect for alleged sex crimes, but only if the offense was reported to law enforcement within three years of it happening.
“I really feel like that one millisecond completely just changed my whole life and changed who I was as a person and changed the sparkle I had and the light I used to carry,” Abi said.
“After I told my mom, I didn’t go over there anymore; my brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah], we didn’t go over there anymore. And even up until now I struggle with it a lot.”
The brave daughter said the alleged abuse happened when she was around eight or nine years old.
“I just remember waking up to him touching me,” she says through tears in the documentary.
“And I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep.”
Kelly, 57, has vehemently denied his daughter’s allegations.
In a statement shared with People, the singer’s attorney attorney Jennifer Bonjea, said, “His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded.
“And the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, did not reach out to Mr Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”
In February 2023, Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of child pornography and enticement of minors for sex.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for racketeering and sex trafficking charges based out of New York the year before.
When Kelly was 27, he married 15-year-old singer Aaliyah at a secret ceremony in Chicago, but the marriage was annulled when it emerged her true age had not been given on the marriage certificate.
Statement from R. Kelly’s attorney
R. Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, released the following statement in response to his daughter’s allegations:
“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations.
“His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded….
“And the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, did not reach out to Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”
Kelly was hit with further allegations of sexual abuse against underage women in 1996, 2001, and 2002.
He was charged with 21 counts of making child sexual abuse videos in June 2002, but was acquitted on all counts during a 2008 trial.
In 2017, a Buzzfeed investigation claimed Kelly had trapped six women in a sex “cult.”
The singer was accused of controlling the women’s lives, including what they ate and wore, when they slept, and keeping records of their sexual activity.
The chilling allegations prompted more accusers to come forward, and in July 2019, Kelly was arrested and charged with sex trafficking offenses.
The singer is currently serving 19 years of his two sentences at North Carolina’s FCI Butner Medium I correctional facility and will be eligible for release in 2045.
The U.S. Sun has reached out to R. Kelly’s attorney for comment.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
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