R & BEAST
R Kelly facing teen sex abuse claims of orgies and holding women prisoner that could end his career as exposed in Surviving R Kelly series
HE’S the R& B superstar whose hits such as I Believe I Can Fly turned him into one of the world’s most successful recording artists.
But R Kelly could be about to crash down to Earth thanks to a battery of claims that he sexually abused numerous women — including some who were under-age.
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The explosive claims about the self-proclaimed “Pied Piper of R&B” — whose 30-year career saw him write songs for Michael Jackson — feature in a new TV documentary which aired in the US this week.
The six-part series features accounts of alleged female victims who waived their right to anonymity to claim they were sexually abused, bullied into threesomes, impregnated, held prisoner and beaten for looking at other men.
The content of Surviving R Kelly is so eye-popping that US cops this week launched a new probe against the 52-year-old singer.
In the series, backing singer Jovante Cunningham claims that, like so many of Kelly’s young lovers, she was lured from outside her school to “hang out” at the star’s Chicago music studio where women lay on beds around the property simply waiting for him.
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Jovante, who was just 14 at the time, said: “The first time I saw sexual activity was when he had one of my teenage friends in a booth with her bent over. And we were all right there. None of us were of age.”
She later joined R Kelly, real name Robert Kelly, on tour where she saw him have sex on a tour bus with his teenage protégé Aaliyah, who he got pregnant according to claims by ex-personal assistant Demetrius Smith.
“He destroyed a lot of people who loved and adored him,” Jovante added.
Another backing singer, Lizzette Martinez, met R Kelly when she was 17. After making one of his regular visits to the mall to scout for young girls, she says he took a shine to her.
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Seeing this as her big chance to become a singer, she went out for dinner with him — and she claims he stuck his tongue down her throat. She claims he later took her virginity.
She told the programme: “He tried to get me drunk and took me back to a room. It was my first sexual experience. I felt like a sex object.”
She said the star proceeded to take “ownership” of her, controlling her every move and forbidding her to talk to other men — not even to respond to “hello”.
If she ignored his request, she claims she would be “smacked”.
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Like all Kelly’s young lovers, she says she was also told to refer to him as “Daddy”, put her hand up if she needed the toilet and ordered to perform sexual acts on herself in a car while his pals sat in the back.
Lizzette — who claims to have miscarried Kelly’s baby while a senior at high school — alleges: “I caught [virus] mononucleosis from him. My body was paralysed. I was in ICU for two weeks. I almost died and he was nowhere to be found.”
Lisa Van Allen is the most famous of Kelly’s alleged “survivors”.
She featured in a sex tape involving him and a 14-year-old aspiring rapper. At just 17, Lisa met Kelly at one of his video shoots.
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She initially could not fathom why Kelly took an interest in her as she was “the youngest girl on set”. But she says she soon found out why.
Lisa said: “He got me on the tour bus and told me to take off my dress.
“He then suggested sexual acts like oral and sex. I didn’t want to tell him ‘no’, he might get upset.”
She claimed the singer then introduced her to other women and had regular threesomes, persuading her by saying: “If you loved me, you’ll do these things for me.”
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Lisa added that one of their lovers was a young girl Kelly claimed was his “16-year-old neighbour”.
She says he took them both down to his gym, brought in a mattress, and filmed them all having sex.
Lisa said: “I started crying when we had sex. I didn’t want to do it and he got upset. He was like, ‘I can’t watch this if you’re crying.’ ”
Not long after, Lisa says she found out the girl was 14 and an aspiring rapper introduced to Kelly by singer Sparkle — a relative of the alleged victim — and exposed the sex tape to help nail Kelly.
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R. Kelly 'plotted to kill ex, 17, who leaked sex tape of singer raping child, 14'
But in the resultant trial in 2008, after six years of legal delays, he was found not guilty of all 14 counts of making child pornography as the jury could not prove the girl on the tape was a minor.
Lisa also reveals she fell pregnant by the singer, but claims to have aborted the baby in fear it would be female. She says: “He did these things to someone else’s child. What would keep him from doing that to mine.”
After the trial, Kelly invited fan Jerhonda Pace to his house to thank her for her support after she skipped school to campaign for his innocence outside of court.
It is alleged he took her virginity when she was just 16 then told her: “Continue to tell everyone you’re 19.”
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She then alleges he started to abuse her while she was staying in his house, once telling her she couldn’t eat after she revealed she supported a different basketball team.
She says for three days she survived on water and a few peanuts.
R&B singer Sparkle, who collaborated with Kelly, breaks down on camera with guilt over introducing her relative to the R&B star.
She also questions what might have been known by his record label.
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Sparkle, real name Stephanie Edwards, claims: “I heard one exec say, ‘I don’t care if he’s on that tape. We can’t afford to lose him.’”
Kelly happened to release his most popular songs around the time of his biggest controversies which, in that era, was enough to dampen down his detractors.
He even performed at the Winter Olympics opening ceremony at Salt Lake City in 2002 — the same year he was charged over the sex tape.
His long-suffering wife Andrea, 44, who Kelly hid his numerous affairs from, says his team would have been heavily involved.
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She said: “He can barely write, so who’s organising all this? Everyone in his team must know but nobody did anything.”
Backing dancer Andrea married Kelly inside a Colorado hotel room in 1996 in a surprise wedding she knew nothing about beforehand.
They went on to have three children, but Andrea was kept hidden in their home where she was abused for the smallest of things, like pouring milk too cold.
Andrea, who eventually divorced the star in 2009, says: “I called a domestic abuse hotline and out of the 17 questions I was asked, only two of them he didn’t do to me.”
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The singer’s career has been dogged by controversies surrounding his infatuation with young women some of whom filed lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct.
Just last year, he was accused of trapping six women in a sex “cult”.
But, in keeping with his reaction to accusations in Surviving R Kelly, the singer has denied all claims relating to sexual assault, domestic violence/abuse and sexual misconduct with minors.
His links with younger women became public due to his relationship with Aaliyah, who he married in 1994 when she was just 15 after she lied about her age.
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MOST READ IN BIZARRE
But the fledgling star — killed in a plane crash in 2001 — is just the tip of the iceberg and now his accusers are queuing up to tell all, inspired by the #MeToo campaign.
After the series aired in the US last week, investigators were flooded with calls.
And the singers latest hits are unlikely to kill off this storm.
According to a colleague of R Kelly, young girls surrounded him all the time
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