R. Kelly’s daughter accuses him of sexually abusing her as a child

R. Kelly’s daughter and wife Andrea Kelly have spoken out about the sexual abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her father in a new documentary about the singer.

On Friday (October 11), TVEI Networks released the first part of a two-part expose on Kelly and his relationship with his children titled Karma: A Daughter’s Journey. Per TMZThe film features his daughter Buku Abi (née Joanne Kelly) recounting details of an incident that she says occurred when she was around eight or nine years old.

The now 26-year-old claims she woke up to find R. Kelly touching her and pretending to be asleep. In a trailer for the documentary, you can hear Abi alluding to the life-destroying moment.

“He was my everything. For a long time I didn’t even want to believe it happened,” she says, crying. “I didn’t know he would hurt me even if he was a bad person. I really feel like that one millisecond completely changed my entire life.”

Elsewhere in the trailer – which also features her mother and brother Robert Kelly Jr. – Buku Abi says she won’t take her son to visit her father, shedding more light on their broken relationship, for which he previously blamed on his ex-wife.

“No one wants to be the child of the father who is out here hurting women and children,” she says, later adding, “He knows exactly why we can’t have the relationship with him that we would have liked.”

Although this may be the first time she has spoken publicly about this alleged incident, this is not the first time Joanne Kelly has made these allegations.

Accordingly TMZShe told her mother about the incident in 2009, about two years after it happened. Andrea Kelly filed a complaint at the time, listing her daughter as Jane Doe; However, they were informed that the statute of limitations had expired.

In a statement to the medium, R. Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said he “vehemently denies these allegations.”

“His ex-wife made the same claim years ago,” Bonjean wrote, “and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and found to be unfounded…and the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, did not comply Mr. Kelly said, “His team even allowed him to deny these hurtful claims.”

In 2022, a grand jury found R. Kelly guilty on six of the 13 federal charges he faced, including three child pornography charges for sexually abusing four girls – three of whom were minors.

They also found the Chicago native guilty of making videos of himself sexually abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter, which led to an additional three charges of making sex videos involving a minor.

A judge in Chicago sentenced him to 20 years in prison. However, Kelly scored a victory when the judge ruled that all but one year would be served concurrently with the 30-year sentence he is currently serving in New York for racketeering.

However, earlier this week R. Kelly’s appeal to have his sex offense convictions overturned was formally rejected by the Supreme Court.

Accordingly CNNOn Monday (October 7), the Supreme Court refused to even hear the appeal. The embattled singer filed his petition back in July, arguing that his crimes were committed decades ago and therefore the charges are not time-barred.

Because Kelly was convicted of incidents that occurred in the mid-1990s, the singer’s team tried to argue that the PROTECT Act he was accused of violating did not apply to his case because it only came into effect in 2003 – even though prosecutors successfully argue that the statute’s statute of limitations is unlimited.

Kelly’s attorney said the law’s extended statute of limitations does not apply to the charges against her client because Congress did not include a provision allowing the law to apply to alleged conduct committed before 2003 – only afterward.