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

R. Kelly’s daughter, Buku Abi, recently decided to speak publicly for the first time about the alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of her father during her childhood in the final minutes of TVEI Streaming Network’s new two-part documentary Karma: A Daughter’s Journeywhich premiered yesterday, October 11th. In the documentary, 26-year-old Abi claims the singer abused her as a child and first reported it to her mother Andrea Kelly in 2009, when she was ten years old.

“He was my everything. For a long time I didn’t even want to believe it happened. I didn’t know he would do something to me even if he was a bad person,” she says in the documentary for the first episode, streaming now. “I was too afraid to tell anyone. I was too afraid to tell my mother.”

Although Abi doesn’t elaborate on the alleged abuse in the first episode, she says that based on her “personal experience,” she believes prison is a “well-suited place” for Kelly.

The article continues after the video.

“I really feel like that one millisecond completely changed my entire life and who I was as a person and how the shine that I had and the light that I carried was changed,” she says. “After I told my mother, I stopped going there; my brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah]We didn’t go there anymore. And even up to now I have a lot of trouble with it.”

In the second episode, Abi goes into detail about the alleged abuse that she says happened when she was eight or nine years old. “I just remember waking up to him touching me,” she recalls, crying. “And I didn’t know what to do, so I just laid there and pretended to be asleep.”

Abi revealed what happened to her mother and they went to the police and filed a report as “Jane Doe,” but she adds in the documentary, “They couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long.” At that point in my life I felt like I had said something in vain.”

Despite the abuse allegations, Kelly’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean said in a statement: PEOPLE“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations. His ex-wife made the same claim years ago, which was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and found to be unfounded. And the “filmmakers,” whoever they are, have did not reach out to Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful allegations.”

In February 2023, Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Chicago for child pornography and enticing minors to have sex. He is currently serving 19 years of his two sentences concurrently and is eligible for release in 2045.