After decades of facing sexual assault allegations, R. Kelly finally received the prison sentence many thought he deserved: A federal court sent the disgraced singer to prison for 30 years. The court granted the prosecution’s wish that Kelly spend more than 25 years in prison to “protect the public.”
“I am here very proud of my justice system, very proud of my fellow survivors, and very pleased with the outcome,” said one victim. “Thirty years (is the time) he did this and 30 years is what he got.”
Kelly claimed to have a close relationship with her mother, but it deteriorated after she became famous.
Robert Sylvester Kelly was born in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, on January 8, 1987, the son of Joanne Kelly, a schoolteacher and devout Baptist. Kelly’s father was absent in his life and his identity is unknown.
When Robert was around five years old, Joanne married his stepfather, Lucious. The family lived in the Ida B. Wells Homes public housing project in Chicago.
Kelly said G.Q. he had a close relationship with his mother, claiming that she asked him to marry him. He said:
“In a son/mother way, I was very, very in love with my mother. I just looked her up and down. I looked around her. Look [at] everything about my mother. You know, he loved her. And I even asked her to marry me one day; She said no, but she got it.”
Joanne died of cancer in 1993. Kelly said she stood by Joanne’s bedside until she breathed her last, vowing to make her proud.
However, journalist Jim DeRogatis cast doubt on Robert’s claim that he maintained a close relationship with his mother throughout his life. DeRogatis wrote in Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly that the singer abandoned his mother after becoming famous. The journalist wrote:
“Several sources told me that once her career started to take off, Kelly actually avoided the mother she claims to adore. She refused to deal with her medical bills, she checked into the office under a false name, even though she had the money.”
The Chicago Sunshine Times reported that Joanne told an ‘associate’ on her deathbed that Kelly made up a story about how she was shot by a gang in her teens. The reality, Joanne claimed, was that Robert attempted suicide.
Supposedly, Robert was sexually abused by his sister when their mother left her as a babysitter.
In his 2012 memoirs, coastersKelly described being sexually assaulted by a woman in his family. Robert said he was woken up by a woman playing with him.
The book did not identify the woman, but revealed that she was a regular presence in the home. “I remember it felt weird. I remember feeling ashamed,” Kelly said. G.Q..
Kelly’s younger brother, Carey Kelly, revealed that his sister, Theresa Kelly, was the abuser. Carey said in Unwine with Tasha that he was not present when Robert was abused, but that he was certain that Theresa assaulted them when Joanne left her as babysitter.
Carey said that the difference between him and Robert was that the singer enjoyed it. The younger Kelly said:
“I think Robert mentioned it to Bruce, our older brother, and I heard him…he bragged that ‘I’m not a virgin anymore.’ For him, it was like a race… I think he enjoyed it, and I think that’s another reason why they hit it off after the fact.”
Robert expressed similar sentiments during his interview with G.Q.:: “I remember actually, after a couple of years, I sometimes looked forward to it. You know, he acts like he didn’t do it, but he did.”
Kelly surprised Chris Heath by G.Q. by comparing sexual assault to a generational curse. Kelly told Heath that since her sister had abused him, she had acquired the curse of becoming an abuser. However, Robert refuted this, saying that he had broken the chain.
“Well, you know, just like poverty, poverty was also a generational curse in my family, but I decided that I am going to stop that curse. The generational curse does not mean that the curse cannot be broken.”
It later turned out that Robert did not break that curse. Carey believes that without Theresa, the R. Kelly story would have been very different. “Theresa is the cause of everything happening the way it did,” Carey told DeRogatis.
Kelly’s former manager added: “[Kelly] He was hypersexual, not because he chose to be, but because of his sister.”
R. Kelly named his daughter Joanne Kelly after her mother
Perhaps in memory of his mother, R. Kelly named his daughter Joanne Kelly. Joanne arrived when R. Kelly’s life began to unravel.
When Joanne was a child, Robert faced intense scrutiny for marrying Aaliyah when she was a minor. Kelly was later charged and acquitted with child pornography, but she continued to face accusations of sexual assault.
Joanne grew up hearing accusations about her father, which almost drove her to suicide. She said the hollywood reporter:
“Fifth and sixth grade is when I started to learn the painful part, the not so good part. I think that was the hardest part for me because for a long time I went with this image of who (was) my dad and what (was) my family.”
Music became a source of comfort for Joanne, but entering the music industry proved difficult due to her last name. She initially chose Arriraye as her stage name before adopting Buku Abi. Buku tried to reconnect with Robert, but it didn’t work.
After lifetime release Surviving R. Kelly, Abi faced calls from netizens to speak out against her father. Buku explained via Instagram that she was separated from Robert and was still processing everything. She wrote:
“Reminders of how terrible my father is, and how we should speak out against him, rude comments about my family, making me, my brothers and our mothers ‘break up’, etc. It doesn’t help my family (me, my sister, my brother and my mother) in our healing process.”
“The same monster that everyone confronts me about is my father. I am well aware of who and what he is. I grew up in that house.”
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn