Buku Abi, also known as Joann Kelly, has alleged that her father, disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly, sexually abused her as a child in a new documentary.
“For a long time I didn't even want to believe what happened,” Abi says through tears in “R. Kelly's Karma: A Daughter's Journey”, which is already broadcast on TVEI. “I was too scared to tell anyone. “I was too scared to tell my mom.”
“I really feel like that millisecond completely changed my life and changed who I was as a person. It changed the brightness it had and the light it used to carry.”
Kelly has denied the allegations through a lawyer.
Abi shares her story throughout the two-part documentary directed by Venessa Renee, which also includes interviews with her mother Drea Kelly, her brothers Jaah Kelly and Robert Kelly Jr., and her grandparents.
“He's a monster,” Abi's grandmother, Melissa Lee, says of R. Kelly in the first installment. “There is no other word for him, he is a monster. What he has done to those children, what he has done to our daughter. …I shouldn't live. “I think putting him in jail is too easy.”
Kelly is currently serving time after being convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and extortion. In 2023, his initial 30-year sentence was extended to 31 years following his conviction on separate charges of child pornography and seduction. The initial federal charges against Kelly were levied almost in conjunction with the release of the 2019 Lifetime documentary series, “Surviving R. Kelly,” which detailed decades of alleged sexual abuse by the singer and featured multiple accusers.
“R. Kelly's Karma” begins with Abi stating that she “feels 100%[s] as if he deserved to be in jail.”
“The only thing I know is what happened to me,” Abi expands later in the documentary. “All I know is what happened to my mom. All I know is what happened to my brother and sister. And, because of that, I feel that, as a family, we all know why he is in jail.”
R. Kelly at a 2019 hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in Chicago.
(Antonio Pérez / Chicago Tribune / Associated Press)
According to Abi, her father “intended to do everything possible to [her]“when I was a child. But everything changed one night when Kelly was hosting a party and Abi decided to sleep in the office instead of her room so she could be closer to him and the night's events.
“I just remember waking up and him touching me,” says Abi, who said the incident occurred when she was 8 or 9 years old. “I didn't know what to do, so I just lay there and pretended to be asleep. “
And he adds: “I was too afraid to tell anyone. It was hard to even accept it happening. For a long time I tried to put it somewhere else. But there came a point where it was too much. It was too much to not talk about. It was too much not to face. So I had to tell my mom. “When I told him, it completely broke his heart.”
The documentary details how Abi reported the abuse to her mother in 2009, when she was 10 years old. According to court documents the filmmakers obtained when Kelly's divorce papers were unsealed in 2019, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigated Kelly for allegedly sexually abusing a preteen Jane Doe in 2009. The filing also said that the “Social worker believed the abuse occurred, but due to the time lapse between the abuse and Jane Doe reporting the incident, the charges were dropped.”
Abi, who remembers speaking to several officials after telling her mother about the abuse, says it was difficult because she felt as if she had spoken back then “for nothing.”
“They basically couldn't process it because I waited too long,” Abi says. “I felt like it was a waste. “I felt like I was putting my mom through everything for nothing.”
Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, addressed Abi's allegations in a statement to People.
“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations,” Bonjean said. “His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children and 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 addition to the accusations, “R. Kelly's Karma” features Abi and her siblings sharing what they remember about running away from their childhood home with their mother and how R. Kelly's actions affected them.
“I don't want to be like him in any way,” says Robert Kelly Jr.
Abi, who gave birth to her first child during the filming of the documentary, also opens up about recording her duet with Kelly (“Wanna Be There”) when she was younger, her struggle with self-harm and her previous miscarriage, as well as more hopeful notes for his family's future.
“Me, my brother and my sister are going to change the narrative about the Kelly name,” Abi says. “For my son, that name will be something to be proud of. It will be something you will wear with honor.”
