New Bombshells In The R. Kelly “Sex Cult” Situation

Sexual abuse. Starvation. Running a sex cult. Over the years, dozens of women have accused R. Kelly of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse — and now more alleged victims have come forward to tell their shocking stories in a new documentary.

In Surviving R. Kelly, a six-part docuseries exposing the star's alleged abuse of young women and girls, several of Kelly's alleged victims detailed decades of sexual abuse R. Kelly has perpetrated against young Black girls and women while being enabled both by people in his camp and the American public.

Kelly is a superstar who has sold over 40 million albums during his 25-year career and is known for "I Believe I Can Fly" and his hip-hop opera series "Trapped in the Closet."

But his history with underage women is well-known. Chicago Sun-Times reporter Jim DeRogatis has been reporting on Kelly’s alleged crimes for over two decades.

In 2002, DeRogatis anonymously received a now-infamous 26-minute video that allegedly shows Kelly telling a 14-year-old girl to call him "Daddy" and urinating in her mouth.

Kelly was indicted in Chicago four months later on multiple child-pornography charges — but in 2008, the singer was found not guilty on all 14 counts.

Last year, Buzzfeed published an exposé on Kelly alleging that he was running an “abusive sex cult” and controlling the lives of six women who lived in his Atlanta and Chicago properties.

The new documentary contained interviews with many of Kelly's former alleged victims, including #MeToo founder Tarana Burke and Kelly's ex-wife Andrea Kelly.

Here are some shocking new bombshells we learned:

The show staged an intervention for one of the alleged "sex cult" victims.

Joycelyn Savage was a 21-year-old woman who told Buzzfeed Kelly was allegedly isolating and holding against her will.

But after the Buzzfeed article was published, Savage hit back in a TMZ video, and stated that she was with Kelly of her own free will.

During the docuseries, Gardner’s mother Michelle Kramer traveled with the film crew — and found her daughter at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Eventually, Kramer was able to engineer an escape with Gardner by meeting her in a bathroom stall before they left in a car.

The documentary later reveals that Gardner returned to Kelly three days after her escape, but later left again, and is currently back with her family.

Kelly allegedly got Aaliyah pregnant.

In 1994, Kelly married his protégé, Aaliyah, for whom he wrote the album Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number. She was 15 at the time.

Backing singer Jovante Cunningham says in the documentary that she saw Kelly, whom she calls “Robert,” having sex with Aaliyah on a tour bus. This would have constituted statutory rape in Illinois -— but Aaliyah’s mother has denied Cunningham’s account.

Kelly’s former personal assistant and tour manager, Demetrius Smith, admitted that he forged paperwork stating that Aaliyah was 18 so that Kelly could marry her. “I’m not proud of that,” he says — but laughs when he describes the moment when Kelly said “I do.”

Kelly and his brother both say they were molested as children.

Kelly claimed in his autobiography a few years ago that he was molested as a child by an older woman. “If he’s saying, I don’t think he’s lying,” Carey Kelly said during the documentary. “Because it happened to me. It happened to me.… I was molested by a family member, and it shook my world, because I didn’t understand it. I knew it wasn’t right, even though I was six years old at the time.”

However his brother also described R. Kelly choosing to date young teens as a "preference."

The producers asked many celebrities to be part of the documentary. Only John Legend stepped up.

John Legend was one of the few male musicians to feature in the documentary. When applauded online, Legend Tweeted that it was an “easy decision.”

Executive producer Dream Hampton has stated publicly that she asked celebrities including Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Lil Kim, Erykah Badu, and Lady Gaga to be involved — and that all declined.

Kelly is said to have hung around high schools and malls to pick up young girls.

Jovante Cunningham, who was one of his former back-up singers, said he found her and her friend while hanging out at her school. She also added that not long after meeting him, he invited her to the studio and promised to help her with her career. Once she was there, she alleged that Kelly began kissing her — and that she witnessed a sexual act on her friends in the booth. "I will not say with whom, but none of us were of age,” she said. “None of us.”

One of Kelly’s alleged victims said she stole a copy of the sex tape that showed a 14-year-old girl and gave it to a reporter.

Lisa Van Allen, who was 17 when she had a sexual relationship with Kelly, said on the documentary that she was shocked when the singer coerced her into having a threesome with another young woman — whom she later discovered was just 14.
Allen said that after that incident, she took the tape and later managed to break free from Kelly.

Kelly allegedly forced some of his victims to go to the bathroom in buckets.

In the final part of the documentary, it’s alleged that Kelly forced some of the women living with him to use the bathroom in buckets instead of bathrooms at his estate, and that the buckets could only be emptied with his permission.

It’s not clear if or when there could be criminal prosecutions.

Kelly was never tried on rape charges, and a jury instead acquitted him in 2008 on all 14 child-abuse charges, even after viewing the so-called “sex tape” that prompted his arrest in 2002.

And he has denied all allegations that he is running a “sex cult.” Kelly has vowed to “sue everybody” involved with the project — and according to TMZ, Kelly and some of his associates are creating a new website, SurvivingLies, in order to debunk information contained in the documentary.

A Facebook page posted by Kelly and his camp was taken down yesterday after alleged text messages between Kelly and one of the young females, where she repeatedly called the singer "Daddy,” were posted.

A spokesperson for Facebook told TMZ that "The Page violated our Community Standards and has been removed." The rep added: "We do not tolerate bullying or sharing other’s private contact information and take action on content that violates our policies as soon as we’re aware.”

Read more: Buzzfeed, CrimeFeed, CrimeFeed (2), The Guardian