R Kelly’s daughter Buku Abi has alleged that her father molested her sexually during her childhood.
She made this known in a documentary on the TVEI Streaming Network.
The singer has been in jail since 2021, serving lengthy sentences for several sexual crimes.
Buku Abi, 26, said she was too scared to share her ordeal with her mother.
“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,” she said, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Abi’s mother, Drea Kelly, corroborated her daughter’s claims saying the singer shouldn’t have abused their child. “What he did to me, he did to me. But you didn’t have to do it to my damn kids,” she said.
Abi said she now struggles with her childhood trauma.
“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.
“My brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah], we didn’t go over there anymore. And even up until now, I struggle with it a lot,” she said.
Jennifer Bonjean, who is R Kelly’s lawyer, accused the ex-wife of having made the same allegation several years ago but was found to be untrue.
Bonjean claimed the allegations were investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and were declared “unfounded”.
She said the documentary makers didn’t give the singer a chance to deny what he called “hurtful claims”.