R. Kelly accuser describes isolation from family, Gayle King interview

BROOKLYN (CN) — Returning for a second day of testimony after detailing a forced abortion and other degradations from a long relationship with R. Kelly that started when she was a minor, a woman identified as Jane Doe offered jurors more insight Tuesday into her life with the R&B star and his multiple other girlfriends.

Doe, whom Courthouse News is not identifying by name at the request of the government, said her sexual contact with the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer started in 2015, when she was 17 years old and Kelly was 48. 

With her parents’ permission, she finished her senior year of high school remotely while living with Kelly and stayed with him for around five years. Prosecutors and prior testimony has shed light on the the many “rules” R. Kelly mandated for his live-in girlfriends, and Doe said part of that entailed isolating her from her family and turning her against them. 

Shortly before Kelly’s arrest in 2019, Doe and another one of Kelly’s live-in girlfriends were interviewed by Gayle King for "CBS This Morning" at the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. 

King said at the time that Kelly was positioned “around the corner” in the hotel room where the interview took place, and would “cough very loudly … so they were aware that he was there.” 

In her Brooklyn federal court testimony, Doe confirmed King’s impression. 

“He was also present in the hotel room … he did a cough that he usually does,” she said. “He was just letting us know that he was in the room with us.”

Leading up to the taping, which took place after the explosive Lifetime documentary “Surviving R. Kelly” aired, Kelly prepared Doe and the other interviewee. He told them to write down questions and answers they expected to come up, according the witness’s testimony.

“We would go over it and he would give us the proper answer,” Doe said. 

Kelly, now 54, is charged in the Eastern District of New York with violations of the Mann Act and federal anti-racketeering law. Allegations include kidnapping and coercing minors into performing sex acts, and knowingly transmitting herpes to victims without their consent. 

Doe described Kelly seeding mistrust between herself and her family, saying the singer would “talk badly about all of our parents,” and get upset if “we were not angry enough.”

During cross-examination by defense attorney Devereaux Cannick, Doe said her parents tried to get jobs working for Kelly, and pitched business ideas — including a food truck and a dildo that would sync up with Kelly’s music — but the singer did not take them up on the offers. 

“He would say that we were basically worthless and we did not mean anything to them,” Doe said. “They had sold us to him, that they had basically given us to him.”

Kelly also claimed that one of his managers, Mase, had given her parents “a few bricks,” meaning narcotics, in exchange for the underage girl. 

Contact with family members was limited, she testified. 

“Eventually I could not talk to them at all,” Jane said of her family, because they wanted to know about her wellbeing, and she was only allowed to discuss topics Kelly approved, like her hair, nails and television shows. 

On Monday, Jane described being instructed to have sex with women, including Kelly’s other girlfriends and his assistants. She said on Tuesday that she had also been ordered to have sex with someone named “Nephew” as a punishment for discussing her relationship with the other live-in girlfriends of Kelly. 

“Nephew was a person that he had also been grooming since he was young,” Jane said, “like me.” 

Doe was told to “be into it, just like I am with him,” while having sex with Nephew.  

While Kelly was detained in Chicago, where he faces state and federal charges that include child pornography in addition to his ongoing Brooklyn trial, Doe moved out of Kelly’s residence in October of 2019. 

But it took her until January of 2020 to recognize her experience as being abusive, she explained. 

Before moving out, Doe wrote Kelly letters indicating she was getting fed up with a cycle of perceived rule-breaking and punishment. 

“I’m not going to get spankings over and over again because my apology isn’t up to your standards,” she wrote by hand on a yellow sketch pad, shown in court.

Doe said she wrote Kelly letters every two or three days. Others notes described her unhappiness and feeling that she was being treated unfairly compared to other girlfriends. 

“I’m not happy. I’m not being fulfilled sexually, and on top of that, I’m getting spankings nearly every day,” she wrote. “This isn’t what I want my life to be. I know it’s not what you want either.” 

She alluded to Kelly’s angry outbursts, after previously testifying that the singer would abuse his girlfriends with his hands, fists, and objects like a cord and Nike Air Force 1 sneakers.  

“I don’t want to be with anyone that is on edge looking for something to argue about,” she wrote. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Geddes handled direct examination of the witness. Cannick’s cross-examination will continue on Wednesday.

Follow Nina Pullano on Twitter

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