R. Kelly’s daughter Buku claims he sexually abused her as a child

R. Kelly, the disgraced R&B star serving time in federal prison following his 2021 conviction on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, is publicly accused of sexually abusing his daughter as a child.

Buku Abi, who was born Joanne Kelly, voices her allegations against the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer in the new TVEI documentary R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Story. “It was really difficult. He was my everything,” says Abi, 26, in the first episode of the two-part documentary. “For a long time I didn’t even want to believe it happened. I didn’t know he would hurt me even if he was a bad person.”

Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, did not immediately respond Weekly entertainment‘s request for comment on Friday, but she denied Abi’s claims in a statement to PEOPLE. “Mr Kelly vehemently denies these allegations,” Bonjean said. “His ex-wife made the same claim years ago, which was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and found to be unsubstantiated… And the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, have not contacted Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful allegations.

Andrea Kelly, Abi’s mother and R. Kelly’s ex-wife, accused the singer of molesting an anonymous teenage girl in 2009 in a filing from the couple’s divorce proceedings that was unsealed in 2019 or 2020. Kelly’s attorney said the Allegation was “100%” “false” when the claim was published in 2020.

Andrea Kelly claimed in the filing that an Illinois Department of Children and Family Services caseworker believed the anonymous girl’s allegations but had to deem them “unfounded” because of the length of time between the alleged incident and its reporting. R. Kelly’s karma identifies Abi as Jane Doe in this case.

In the second episode of R. Kelly’s KarmaAbi emotionally describes the alleged abuse, which she says took place when she was 8 or 9 years old. “He was having a party and I didn’t want to be without him, so instead of sleeping in my room, I decided to sleep in his office, which was near the party,” she recalls tearfully. “And I just remember falling asleep, and it had to be around three or four in the morning, and I just remember waking up to him touching me and I didn’t know what to do. So I just laid there and I pretended he was sleeping.

Abi says she immediately felt the severity of the situation. “I just remember that from that moment on I was a different person. I wasn’t the same anymore,” she says. “But I was too scared to tell anyone, so it was hard to even accept that it happened. So for a long time I just tried to put it somewhere else. But there came a point where it was too much. That was it.” There was too much I couldn’t talk about, so I had to tell my mom.

Abi says she told her mother about the alleged abuse in 2009, when she was 10 years old. “When I told her, it completely broke her heart,” she recalls, adding that she stopped seeing her father regularly after speaking to her mother. “He was my everything and after that day, after I told my mother, I stopped going there. My brother and sister, we stopped going there. And so far I’m having trouble with it.” It’s very difficult for me to never want to talk to him again, but still want to [he’s] my father.”

Abi, a musician, says in the documentary that she was overwhelmed by the court process after telling her story to her mother. “I had to talk to officials, counselors and all these people about what happened, but because I waited so long to say something, they really couldn’t do anything about it,” she says. “My mother had to go to court on my behalf. They basically couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long, and at that point in my life I felt like I had said something for nothing. I felt like it was a waste of time.” . And I felt like I was giving my mother so much for nothing.”

Kelly’s daughter says she spent time in a mental institution and attempted suicide several times because of the alleged abuse. “I really feel like a millisecond has completely changed my entire life, changed me as a person, and changed the glow I had and the light I used to carry,” says she.

Kelly, 57, is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence after being found guilty of racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law. During his trial, witnesses said they saw Kelly sexually abuse the late singer Aaliyah when she was a young teenager. Kelly denied all allegations of abuse and his lawyers argued that all sexual encounters with his accusers were consensual.

Kelly was previously charged with child pornography in 2008, stemming from the infamous 2002 video in which the musician allegedly urinated on an underage girl. He pleaded not guilty and was acquitted.

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After extensive reporting on sexual abuse allegations by Buzzfeed News and Lifetime’s Survivor R. Kelly According to documents, Kelly was charged in Illinois in 2019 with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against four victims (three of whom were minors at the time).

Several other cases and allegations followed, including a federal trial in Chicago in which Kelly was convicted of producing child pornography and child enticement. The singer was sentenced to an additional 20 years in prison in that case, although all but one of those years will be served concurrently with his 30-year sentence. Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Kelly’s appeal in the Chicago case.