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Joann Kelly, the daughter of controversial, incarcerated American singer, R. Kelly, has revealed that her father sexually abused her as a child.
Speaking in a new two part documentary series for the TVEI Streaming Network, Joann said she first reported the abuse to her mother, Drea, in 2009.
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The 26-year-old who did not detail the alleged abuse, stated in an episode of the documentary titled ‘Karma: A Daughter’s Journey’, that the jail sentence of the 57-year-old singer is well deserved.
In the second episode, Abi, now 26, claims the abuse happened when she was 8 or 9 years old. “I just remember waking up to him touching me,” she tearfully recalls. “And I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep.” She added, “from that moment on, I was a different person.”
Abi says she initially reported the alleged abuse to her mother in 2009, and a complaint was filed under “Jane Doe,” but the statute of limitations had run out. “They couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long. So at that point in my life, I felt like I said something for nothing,” she said.
Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said in a statement to People that the imprisoned singer “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.”
“My father was my everything. For a long time, I didn’t want to believe that it happened. I didn’t know that he would do something to me even if he was a bad person.
“I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom. I really feel like that one millisecond completely just changed my whole life, who I was as a person and the light I used to carry.
“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.”
Reacting to the documentary, the singer’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean in a public statement denied the allegations.
The Eastern Updates recalls that the singer was sentenced to 20 years in prison In February 2023, for child pornography and enticement charges.
He will serve the years concurrently with a prior 30-year prison sentence from a separate case in New York on July 29, 2022.