Buku Abi, the daughter of disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly, is opening up about what it was like growing up with her father — and the heartbreaking secret she’s been harboring for years.
Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual assault and abuse.
Abi, legally named Joanne Kelly, shared the sad detail in the newly released TVEI Streaming Network’s documentary “R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey,” which dropped Thursday. As we told you earlier this month, the show features commentary from the singer’s ex-wife, Andrea Kelly, and all three of the children they had together. Now that the documentary is out, a tough part of Abi’s past is now out in the open, in particular, the fact that she was allegedly sexually abused by her own father.
“He was my everything. 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. I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom,” she said in the first episode, before later explaining that she told her mom back in 2009 when she was 10 years old.
“I just remember waking up to him touching me. And I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep,” she explained.
In the next episode, she detailed that the abuse started when she was around eight or nine years old, and that she and her mother eventually filed a complaint with police once she told her — though Abi didn’t specify what year they filed. However, due to the amount of time that had passed between the alleged offense and the complaint, Kelly couldn’t be prosecuted.
Abi’s claims of abuse echo those of her mother and her siblings, who all alleged that they were harmed by R. Kelly. The disgraced singer since responded to the documentary, releasing a statement via his lawyer Jennifer Bonjean to PEOPLE magazine on Friday.
“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations. His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded…. And the ‘filmmakers,’ whoever they are, did not reach out to Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims,” the statement reads.
