R. Kelly's daughter says he sexually abused her as a child

Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photos: TVEI Network/Youtube, Shutterstock

R. Kelly's daughter Buku Abi has accused her father of sexually abusing her as a child. Abi made the accusation in a new documentary titled “ R. Kelly's Karma: A Daughter's Journeywhich premiered on the TVEI streaming network on Friday. In the documentary, Abi claims she waited a long time to tell her mother Andrea Kelly about the alleged abuse and finally spoke out in 2009 when she was ten.

“He was my everything. For a long time I didn’t even want to believe it happened,” said 26-year-old Abi, according to a People Report. “I was too afraid to tell anyone. I was too afraid to tell my mother.”

“I just remember waking up to him touching me,” she said of her father, who she claims abused her when she was eight or nine years old. “And I didn't know what to do, so I just laid there and pretended to be asleep.”

When she told her mother about the incident, they went to the police to file a report as Jane Doe, but Abi stated that she was not in a position to press charges against her father. “They couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long. At that point in my life, I felt like I had said something for nothing,” she said in the documentary.

When reached for comment, R. Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told the Cut that R. Kelly “vehemently denies” his daughter's allegations. Bonjean also claimed that “his ex-wife made the same claim years ago and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and found to be unfounded.”

R. Kelly is currently serving two concurrent prison sentences on federal charges that include production of child pornography, coercion of minors for sex, extortion, sex trafficking, bribery and sexual abuse. Back in 2019, after the release of the Survivor R. Kelly In the documentary, Abi released a statement distancing herself from her father.

“To the people who feel like I should speak out against everything that's happening right now, I just want you all to understand that 'devastated' is an understatement for what I'm feeling right now. I apologize if my silence on everything that is happening comes across as careless,” she wrote. “My decision not to talk about him and what he does is for my peace of mind. The same monster you all confront me with is my father. I know exactly who and what he is. I grew up in this house.”