R. Kelly’s daughter Buku Abi, also known as Joann Kelly, has alleged the imprisoned singer sexually abused her as a child in a new documentary for the TVEI Streaming Network.
“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,” a tearful Buku Abi says in R. Kelly‘s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey. “I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom.”
Her untold story is revealed as part of the two-part documentary that includes emotional interviews with Abi’s siblings, Jaah and Robert Kelly Jr. and their mother, Drea Kelly. “What he did to me, he did to me. But you didn’t have to do it to my damn kids,” his ex-wife says.
“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. After I told my mom, I didn’t go over there anymore,” Abi says, via People. “My brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah], we didn’t go over there anymore. And even up until now, I struggle with it a lot.”
Kelly’s lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, of the New York City-based Bonjean Law Group, was not available when The Hollywood Reporter reached out for comment.
“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations,” she said in a statement to People. “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.”
In 2021, Kelly, who had become an R&B superstar known for his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly,” was convicted after a sex trafficking trial that followed decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children.
Public condemnation and his trial didn’t come until a widely watched docuseries, Surviving R. Kelly, helped make his case a signifier of the #MeToo era and gave voice to accusers who wondered if their stories were previously ignored because they were Black women.
The first two episodes of R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey are streaming on the TVEI Streaming Network.