Joann Kelly, otherwise known as Buku Abi, daughter of Robert Kelly, a.k.a R. Kelly, has accused her father of sexual abuse.
Buku, while speaking in a new two-part documentary series for the TVEI Streaming Network titled, ‘Karma: A Daughter’s Journey‘, said that the R&B singer abused her as a child.
She reported the abuse to her mother, Drea, in 2009.
“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 were a bad person he would do something to me,” the 26-year-old said in an episode of the
documentary.
“I was too scared to tell anybody. I was too scared to tell my mom.”
Buku did not give details of the alleged abuse but said she was satisfied with R. Kelly’s jail sentence.
“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 continued.
“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 has denied the allegations through his lawyer, Jennifer Bonjean, who said Buku’s claim was “investigated years ago by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and was unfounded.”
Bonjean added that the “filmmakers, whoever they are, did not reach out to Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”
Three-time Grammy award-winning R&B singer, R. Kelly was sentenced to 20 years in prison for child pornography and enticement charges in 2023.
He will also serve the years concurrently with a previous 30-year prison term from a different case in New York on July 29, 2022.
So far, the singer has emphatically denied all the wrongdoings.