More than five years after she came out in support of R. Kelly’s survivors, the singer’s daughter Buku Abi has alleged that she, too, was sexually abused by her father.
In the new documentary R. Kelly‘s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey on TVEI Streaming Network, Abi claims that she was abused by the singer when she was eight or nine years old.
“He was my everything. For a long time, I didn’t even want to believe that it happened,” Abi says in the first episode of the two-part series, per People. “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,” she adds. “I was too scared to tell my mom.”
In the doc’s second episode, Abi, who was born Joann Kelly, says she remembers “waking up to him touching me” as she pretended to be asleep, and that she first reported it to her mother in 2009 as a 10-year-old.
“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 said in the documentary. “After I told my mom, I didn’t go over there 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 attorney Jennifer Bonjean “vehemently denied” the allegations in a statement to People, saying that the filmmakers never reached out to Kelly to “deny these hurtful claims.”
“His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded,” Bonjean said.
In 2022, a federal jury convicted the disgraced singer on six of 13 counts, including three counts each of producing child pornography and enticing minors into illegal sexual activity. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and then got the sentence extended for federal child pornography charges.
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Following the release of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly in 2019, Abi shared her support for the singer’s accusers in a lengthy, emotional statement.
“The same monster you all [are] confronting me about is my father. I am well aware of who and what he is,” she said at the time. “I grew up in that house. My choice to not speak on him and what he does is for my peace of mind. My emotional state. And for MY healing. I have to do & move in a manner that is best for me.”
