R. Kelly’s daughter is accusing the singer of sexually abusing her during her childhood.
In a new two-part documentary series, “R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey,” Kelly’s eldest child, 26-year-old Buku Abi, said she was abused by her famous father when she was 10.
“I just remember waking up to him touching me,” Abi, whose legal name is Joann Kelly, says in the show’s second episode. “And I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep.”
Abi was 10 when she first told her mother, Andrea, about the alleged abuse.
“He was my everything,” Abi says in the documentary. “For a long time, I didn’t even want to believe that it happened. I didn’t know that even if he was a bad person that he would do something to me.”
Abi and her mother eventually went to the police and filed a complaint against the singer. But “they couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long,” she says. “So at that point in my life, I felt like I said something for nothing.”
Kelly was found guilty of several child pornography and sex abuse charges in September 2022. The singer’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, denied his daughter’s allegations.
In a statement to People, Bonjean said that “Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations,” and that the singer’s ex-wife made a similar allegation “years ago” that the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services investigated. Bonjean called that accusation “unfounded.”
She also accused “the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are” of not reaching out to Kelly or his team “to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”
Bonjean did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Abi, who, like her father, is a singer, said the alleged abuse left her with long-lasting emotional scars.
“I really feel like that one millisecond completely just changed my whole life and changed who I was as a person, and changed the sparkle I had and the light I used to carry,” she says in the documentary. “After I told my mom, I didn’t go over there [to her father’s house] 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.”
“R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey” can be seen on the streaming platform TVEI.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.