Initially, I met R. Kelly by going to his trial.
I met him when I was 14, and I was, like, on the fence,
and I wanted to know, like,
did he really do what everyone said he did?
Here is a man who is going on trial for having sex
with an underage girl,
and yet you had women not supporting the victim,
but supporting the guy who's going on trial.
I screamed at the top of my lungs,
"What is wrong with this person?"
His poor decisions have ruined so many lives.
He destroyed my family.
(audience cheering)
LISA: When we first started having sex,
Rob was behind the camera,
and I started popping the tapes in to see what was on them.
But I came across the one with me, him,
and the 14-year-old.
Bootleg copies of the tape start
showing up around the country.
This is the one that makes it
almost impossible for people to pretend
that they did not know that this person
had a thing for little girls.
SPARKLE: Chicago Sun-Times contacted me
to view tapes
that possibly had girls on it
that I may have known.
That was her, my niece, for sure.
And that was him.
NEWS ANCHOR: Police are investigating a video
allegedly showing the R & B singer having sex
with a 14-year-old girl.
POLICE CHIEF: The Chicago Police Department
is currently seeking to arrest Mr. Kelly.
RADIO HOST: Radio stations WTMG, Magic 101.3
and WKZY Lite Rock 106.9
will immediately end all airplay of Kelly's songs.
PALLASCH: R. Kelly is arrested on the Chicago charges.
The charges they filed against him were not
statutory rape charges; they filed
child pornography charges.
It's the same penalties
but is easier to prove if you cannot
pin it down to a specific date.
There was no date on the tape.
JOURNALIST: What about the child porn charges?
Not right now, guys.
-(indistinct shouting) -WOMAN: R. Kelly!
PALLASCH: He ultimately had to face the charges
in a Chicago courtroom.
He pleads not guilty and posts his bail,
and he's released.
After R. Kelly pleads not guilty,
he goes straight to a South Side church,
he goes straight to an event
where he is admired by young children.
Here he is being prosecuted
for allegedly having sex with an underage girl,
and ministers, civil rights leaders in the city of Chicago
wanted to play up the side of him
that did the "I Believe I Can Fly,"
and not the side of him with the raunchy lyrics
that kind of went along with possibly having sex
with an underage girl.
And it really speaks to the duplicity of R. Kelly.
KATHY CHANEY: Kelly posted bail,
um, and was allowed to continue to, you know, travel
during the legal fight that he was facing.
There's no surprise that he continued
business as usual every day.
(audience cheering)
(distorted): I met him back in the early '90s
and started doing odd jobs for him.
I was friends with him during the trial and the sex tape.
During that time, I was believing him
when he said it wasn't him.
That was the story.
I believed it wasn't him
because I had never seen the tape.
However, there were some people who were around
who had actually seen the girl, who would later say, you know,
well, she was around and even when the trial
was going on, he would still have her around.
But those stories didn't start to come out until later.
You know, people in the, in the camp
would start to talk about it.
About a year later, after R. Kelly was arrested
on the 21 counts, he was, um, arrested again.
He was in Miami and it was on additional porn charges.
POLICE OFFICER: We seized, at that time, camera equipment
and 12 digital photos
which we believe to be child pornography.
OFFICER 2: Do you understand that anything you say
can and may be used against you?
SPARKLE: I remember being at my brother
and sister-in-law's house,
and the detectives showing us stills.
It wasn't a pretty sight.
They showed my niece,
Robert, and another young lady...
intertwined.
And I screamed at the top of my lungs,
"What the (bleep) is going on? What is going on?
What is wrong with this person?"
RICHARD DEVINE: Unfortunately, the judge down in Florida
concluded that the police did not have
appropriate reason to search the area where they found
the materials and the camera, uh, so tossed out that evidence.
And then the Florida case eventually was dropped.
In the middle of all of the-these allegations,
R. Kelly is just dropping music.
Big song he released, "Ignition," the remix.
♪ It's the remix to "Ignition" ♪
♪ Hot and fresh out the kitchen. ♪
It deterred us away from all of the allegations,
and our focus then became on this music.
After that video came out... (chuckles)
his career should've been over.
"Oh, he's still gonna put records out,
and people are still gonna buy 'em?" And they did.
NEWS ANCHOR: Kelly has lost nothing
in terms of fan support, in terms of the many thousands
of men and women who continue to support their R & B hero.
(cheering, screaming)
MITCHELL: The albums were still selling
because the community, for all intents and purposes,
were still supporting him.
And then came Chocolate Factory,
which debuted at number one on the Billboard charts.
R. Kelly drops the most undeniable hit of his career
at exactly the same moment he's on trial
for these unfathomable crimes.
And then he came with "Step in the Name of Love."
♪ I know ♪
♪ That it's somebody's birthday tonight. ♪
When R. Kelly released "Step in the Name of Love,"
it's sort of in this tradition of black family music.
We have these songs that become songs
that are anthem-like in the black community.
It's the song that you dance to at weddings, a family reunion.
It gave him another layer of-of covering.
That song that they love
is connected to a moment in their life,
whether they got married to one of his songs
or they had their first dance to one of the songs.
I think we love nothing more than the success story,
a rebound story.
I think that, again, largely in the black community,
he was not thought of as guilty,
even though the evidence was there.
"Nobody's gonna stop this train. You can't stop me.
"I'm still out of jail, I'm free as a bird,
"so I'm gonna make this music, I'm gonna get it out,
"and I'm gonna prove that you guys love me so much
"that no matter what I do,
you're still going to praise me."
And that's kind of like what it felt like.
You never really knew what to believe, but you knew that you,
in a way, felt sorry for his wife.
Andrea Kelly's mother called me.
She was concerned about not hearing from her daughter.
That was very dark for her, very rough,
not knowing what the outcome could be.
ANDREA: He denied it for the longest time.
Like, "Drea, it's not what you think.
They're lying on me, somebody set me up."
I finally realized it doesn't get better.
It gets worse.
I had small children.
They were already dealing with their father in the news,
having a court case that deals with pedophilia and children.
And I remember going out on the balcony
and climbing up on the ledge.
Like, "God, I can't take another day.
I can't do this anymore."
He had taken me to a place
that I was willing to leave my babies.
So I just prayed and asked God for a sign.
And something said to get my laptop, and I went
to the National Domestic Violence Awareness Hotline.
And there's 17 questions.
There was only two things on that list
that Robert hadn't done to me.
And that's when it became real to me, like...
"Drea, you're being abused."
DR. JODY ADEWALE: We often look at women
and we blame them. We say, "All you have to do is leave.
All you have to do is-is walk out."
But it's not that simple.
There are psychological blocks that an individual has
that have been fed throughout the whole situation
that stops them from leaving.
It takes about seven tries for a girl
to successfully leave her abuser for good.
That statistic tells us how difficult it is, often,
to pull away from these relationships.
ANDREA: The day
that I left Robert...
I was like any other woman.
Running in the middle of the night.
$2,500, a duffle bag,
my three babies, and nothing else.
He has all the money. "Where you going
with three babies?"
No money.
But I would rather die,
knowing that I tried to get away from him,
than to die right there in the house
because I didn't have the courage to leave.
Robert, you know what you did.
You know the turmoil you brought into my kids' life.
You destroyed Christmases, birthdays, graduations.
It's because of you, Robert, that my children were told
they can't sit at the lunch table.
"'Cause your daddy rapes little girls."
You can deny all you want to.
And for that, you can go to hell.
(audience cheering)
GEORGE: At the time that tape came out,
R. Kelly was the biggest artist in R & B
and arguably one of the biggest artists
in the recording industry at that time,
in terms of actual record sales.
I can't remember any
artists speaking out against Robert,
regarding this tape.
It made me feel like I didn't want
to be a part of this industry that
I had grown to love.
WENDY WILLIAMS: This is an industry where anything goes.
And... before you know it,
you are all sucked in.
At what cost? At what cost?
It would have been a difficult decision, right?
When we go... (chuckles) when we go to the chairman
and say, "Should we keep R. Kelly?"
And he's like, "Well, how much is he generating?"
And he's like, "Well, yeah, but, you know,
he-he might've statutorily raped a couple... girls,"
and like...
"Yeah, but how much is he generating?"
GEORGE: So there's a whole world of people,
people close to him, people in the industry,
who he is a-- he's a font of money.
Getting him on your radio station means ratings,
getting him in your concert venue means money,
and because the thing dragged on
some insane amount of time,
it gave him breathing room
to rebuild a lot of those relationships.
And so then he does this weird "Trapped in the Closet" stuff.
♪ He opens the door ♪
♪ I can't believe it's a man ♪
♪ Man, man, man. ♪
If he hadn't done "Trapped in the Closet,"
I think his career would've been really in trouble a lot earlier.
Like a lot of his music, it's very much telling on himself.
It's a whole thing about a man
and-and different people trying to deal
with whoever they really are
and being constantly surprised at-at how debased they are
and how debased the world is around them.
POWERS: I think, at some point, he probably
figured out that playing sex for laughs was
a way that he could continue
to avoid absolute condemnation
for what he might've been doing behind the scenes.
LEMIEUX: He wasn't as much a guilty pleasure, I think,
for audiences at this point,
as he was like a bad boy, like an antihero.
You know, like, y-you know that he's bad,
you know that he's dirty.
The accusations are now a part of pop culture as much as he is.
We, at this point, have seen Dave Chappelle's
-"Pee On You" sketch. -♪ I want to piss on you ♪
-(audience laughs) -♪ Yes, I do ♪
♪ I'll piss on you, I'll pee on you. ♪
We've seen the "Trial of R. Kelly" episode on The Boondocks.
Uh, you there, urban youth,
why do you think R. Kelly is innocent?
If I started peeing on you right now, would you:
A) smile and ask for more, or B) move the hell out the way?
We associate him with urinating on somebody.
That's a punch line. That's a joke.
PALLASCH: As the years go by,
there's never any trial date set for the Chicago charges,
and we're wondering, what is taking so long?
This has never happened. No one can think of a case
that has gone on for year after year after year like this.
It's in R. Kelly's interest to have this delayed
as long as possible.
You'd much rather have
a 21-year-old girl on the stad
than a 14-year-old girl on the stand.
The right to a speedy trial under the U.S. Constitution
is-is-is sort of a right guaranteed to the defendant.
So if the defendant thinks that things
are dragging on too long, the defendant can say,
"Hey, I have a right to a speedy trial.
We have to go to trial in the next 60 days, whatever."
R. Kelly never took advantage of that.
Rob's team put it off for all those years
because if it wasn't fresh in people's mind,
uh, you know, they wouldn't really be concerned
with what was going on.
REPORTER: The long-delayed child pornography trial begins.
Kelly is accused of videotaping himself having sex
with an underage girl some time
between January 1998 and November 2000.
Kelly's defense team contends it is not Kelly on the tape.
I just want to say, y'all need to leave him alone.
That's not R. Kelly.
One of the things
that was laughable, uh,
with Robert trying to profess his innocence,
was that that was his brother Carey on the tape.
He definitely does not look like Robert.
You can tell them apart.
That was laughable to me because I'm like,
"Really? You-You're gonna throw your brother there now?"
It seemed sort of like a Hail Mary pass to try and say
it could be his brother there on the tape.
CAREY: He never said it out of his mouth,
but his legal team did, so I had to speak out
to defend myself, my character,
you know, um,
and so I did.
WILLIAMS: If you're just turning on your radio,
we're talking to Carey Kelly, R. Kelly's younger brother.
You did a body double
for your big brother Robert in "Your Body's Callin'"
and things kind of turned,
I mean, a little ugly
when this whole child molestation thing
-came into play. -CAREY: Mm-hmm.
WILLIAMS: People were trying to say it was you.
CAREY: His attorney said that it was me in the videotape.
-WILLIAMS: What? -CAREY: That was made-- that was their argument.
He never came forth and said,
"Hey, you know, what y'all hearing is not true."
WILLIAMS: "I am not a child molester,
but it definitely wasn't my brother in that video."
CAREY: Exactly. Exactly.
And when my kids started getting teased at school.
I have a 15-year-old daughter...
WILLIAMS: Oh, God.
...that got stomped by 15 girls.
I made police reports, the whole nine.
She was just defending her father. That's it.
WILLIAMS: So tell me what you saw on this tape
with these 12-year-old girls. Why do we say that they're 12?
CAREY: Well, because he's, like,
he was interviewing them on these tapes.
WILLIAMS: So, the girls were on there
being interviewed by him, and he-- they're saying
their real names and that they're 12 years old.
-You see the sex and all like that. -CAREY: Right.
WILLIAMS: You think your brother's gonna do jail time?
Or do you think he's going to get off?
CAREY: Well, my opinion is this:
what's done in the dark shall come to the light,
and everybody on this earth got to pay for what they've done,
-even if he don't do jail time. -WILLIAMS: Wow.
CAREY: He still got to pay for what he done.
So I spoke out and said, "Hey, that's not me. That's not me."
You know, I have nothing to do with that.
I took it further and said other things that...
that I had no knowledge of.
I was just saying things to actually hurt him, to be honest.
I was saying things that I heard other people saying.
He's a pedophile. He-He's, you know, he-he has molested girls.
So I was saying that because that's what I heard.
I never saw it.
BRUCE KELLY: Robert simply asked Carey
to tell the truth.
Do a deposition with his attorneys
that the things that he was saying was not true.
And he said, "If you...
"do this deposition with my attorneys,
"I will give you $100,000
and a one-record contract deal."
I'll never understand that as long as I live.
You could've been rich.
I'll never understand that.
CROWD: Free R. Kelly!
(indistinct yelling)
KIM JANSSEN: When the trial began,
this was a big, major event.
So it was a real circus.
There was a lot of journalists there,
probably a good 30, 40 journalists covering the trial.
(overlapping shouting)
I have one question.
Where was the parents when the girl was getting (bleep)?
MITCHELL: Women lined up,
most of them African-American,
they lined up to show support for R. Kelly.
(overlapping shouting)
He's not guilty at all.
They just want to bring him down and kill his image.
Not support for the victims.
Not support for the young girl, whomever she was, on the tape.
And that was shocking to many of us.
(crowd cheering)
CHANEY: There were young girls
who were at the courthouse every single day
for the trial. They were fans,
but... somehow they...
got to talk to him.
JERHONDA: My name is Jerhonda Pace.
I'm from Chicago.
When I started going to Robert's trial,
I was 14 years old. I was a freshman in high school.
My mom, she was, like, that working single mom,
so it was very easy for me to,
uh, skip school and go to his trial
and have my mom not even see it
or have a clue that I was doing it.
I went to his trial because I was a superfan at the time.
And the fact that it was a trial that was open to the public,
I was excited to go.
I got the chance to engage in conversations with him.
So I would just say, "Hey, good morning."
He would speak back and I would tell him,
you know, keep his head up.
The same thing that I would say
outside of the courthouse,
and he would always thank me for my support.
His eyes were always fixated on the young girls.
So he would look and he would do, like, a smile
and a nod, like, "Oh, okay, I see you."
And it just made us, you know,
wonder more and talk more of, like,
you're on trial for this and you're allowing yourself to be
enamored by young girls.
I mean, it was just...
I would want to say that we were surprised, but we weren't.
It was mind-boggling.
(crowd cheering, shouting)
JOHN NORRIS: A former music protégée of Kelly, Sparkle,
has publicly declared that the girl
on the video is her young niece.
I felt partially responsible
because I introduced my family to him.
And it felt like it happened on my watch.
Robert's legal team was...
basically trying to say that, you know,
I just was out for money
and, um, I was bitter.
They offered me upwards... six figures,
high in the six figures for me and Robert to have a sit-down
with all media around us
to say that "Sparkle and I are okay.
We're 'Kum-Bah-Yah.'"
I didn't take the money because I can't be bought.
I'm-a stand up for my family.
JANSSEN: The trial-- there was eight white jurors
and four African-Americans.
The atmosphere in the courtroom was... somber.
We all understood we had to watch the-the film,
that it was the-the central
piece of evidence in this case, but nobody...
nobody wants to watch that.
The prosecution-- their entire case was the tape.
JANSSEN: They turned down the lights
and they put it on, and it was... it's grim.
You're sitting in a room
with 50, 60 people watching child pornography.
She's very obviously, like, a pubescent girl.
It made me feel gross.
During testimony today on the child pornography trial
of singer R. Kelly,
witness after witness identified those
on that now infamous sex tape as the alleged victim and R. Kelly.
So the prosecution had 14 witnesses.
I just remember being terrified
when I was called to the witness stand.
But here's this person who I was great friends with,
who's a great person, and all this is happening to her now.
And I was trying to help the case by giving any
specific details that I thought might really,
you know, seal the deal and make sure that he was found guilty.
They played the tape because they wanted it to be
kind of fresh in my memory.
And I remember,
once again, just kind of getting maybe halfway through
the whole tape and just breaking down and crying.
JACQUES CONWAY: I testified in this trial
because I coached her, I knew the parents.
I knew everything about her. I can describe her.
I picked her out as soon as I saw the video.
But when I had a chance to speak with the mother,
she said that's not her daughter.
Her parents denied that this happened.
It could be embarrassment.
There's a lot of variables in that.
To this day I can't put it on one,
but I believe there was a combination of things
that affected how this outcome came about.
LISA: I recognized
the 14-year-old's body
because I had had sex with her and Robert.
So, you know, it was no doubt in my mind
that it was her body.
I mean, we'd done oral on each other.
I mean, I touched her breasts,
I, you know, looked at, you know, those parts.
So there was no doubt in my mind that it was her.
SPARKLE: When I came forward,
it was important to me to stand up
and tell the truth during the trial
and be a witness for the prosecution in the trial.
I did have to make eye contact with Robert
because they wanted us to identify him
as the defendant.
I had to sit up a little bit to see him,
because he was slouched down in the chair.
And when I did that,
he looked at me but then put his head down.
And I was like, "Yeah, that's him right there.
That's him."
My oldest brother did get on the stand...
...and he said
that it wasn't her,
it wasn't my niece on the tape.
I don't know
what my family was thinking.
Like I said, we were estranged.
For ten years I didn't speak to my family
because of that (bleep).
It's crazy.
NORRIS: The case against R. Kelly is complicated
by the fact that there is no accuser.
Like Kelly, the girl alleged to be on the tape says,
"It wasn't me."
GENGLER: Being a mom now,
you can't fathom your child being in that situation.
I would do anything to protect my child
and to keep my child safe.
For all I know, she wa-wanted to just live a normal life.
Um... and I felt really torn because, you know,
my faith and my morals told me I needed to come forward,
because what he did was wrong.
And that's all I knew, and I was trying to,
you know, keep him from doing it ever again.
(crowd shouting)
I just want to know why,
at the end of the day, he can sleep at night
knowing that he's affecting these innocent young girls.
Girls that are still trying to figure out themselves,
still trying to figure out relationships...
(crowd shouting indistinctly)
...and taking full advantage of that.
I will never understand that.
It's sickening.
(crowd shouting indistinctly)
REPORTER: The jury is deliberating
in R. Kelly's child pornography case.
Jurors reportedly met for three and a half hours yesterday
before breaking for the night.
This is what we think about him and his music.
R. Kelly is innocent.
HOST: You think the listeners should still
support R. Kelly,
even though we haven't found out whether he's innocent
or guilty as of yet?
CALLER: Well, right. That could be you or me.
REPORTER: It's been six years in the making...
MAN: Over here.
...and the time has finally come.
DEVINE: At the end of the case,
my belief, in watching closing arguments
and in talking to our trial prosecutors,
was that we had presented a good case.
It had gone in as well as could be expected.
There were issues, and it was up to the jury
to decide those issues.
JANSSEN: Before the verdicts came down,
I saw Sam Adam Jr., who was sitting next to R. Kelly,
turn to him and say,
"We did everything we could."
And the mood in the room was very much
that he was about to be a condemned man.
CHANEY: When the verdict came down
for the R. Kelly trial,
we're trying to read the judge's face,
and you couldn't read it.
JANSSEN: Everyone in the courtroom thought he was
gonna be found guilty.
CRAIG WILLIAMS: Rob was very scared
of going to jail.
PALLASCH: They announce the verdict.
CHANEY: When they said "not guilty,"
every reporter's face was like...
Not guilty? You've got to be kidding me.
PALLASCH: Kelly says, "Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Jesus."
Kelly's lawyers are ecstatic.
Uh, they're hugging R. Kelly, who's crying.
They seem to be almost taken by surprise.
I just said one word. Wow.
And that was it.
CRAIG: I don't know if race played a part
in this trial or not, but if it were
white children that were being molested
by a black man in this case,
I'm sure Rob would have gone to jail very swiftly.
REPORTER: When he left home this morning,
R. Kelly had no idea when he'd be back.
His fate was in the hands of jurors
who could have sent him to prison for years.
Instead, tonight they set him free.
PRODUCER: With women that came out
against him and said,
"I was in an underage relationship with him.
He did this to me, he did that," what...?
I-I just didn't believe them-- the womans.
I know it sounds ridiculous.
The way they dress, the way they act.
I didn't like them. I voted again--
I disregarded all what they said.
I was happy for the verdict at the time.
I was happy.
BRUCE: I felt
wonderful when he-- they said not guilty.
That's how I felt, wonderful.
SPARKLE: I think that Robert
wasn't convicted because my niece and sister
and brother-in-law didn't come forward.
Regarding criminal cases, if there is no willing participant,
then really there's no case.
I really don't know if my family was paid off.
I know the family was still hanging out with him.
My brother-in-law was still playing guitar
on a lot of his songs.
And that's...
what it is.
TOURE: After R. Kelly got off trial,
there was conversation at BET, like, "We should interview him,"
and I was the guy who was gonna do the interview.
We were in a sort of fancy Chicago hotel suite.
He came with this crisis manager.
He was very nervous before we started.
I remember saying hi to him before we started,
and he was kind of, like...
clearly knew, like, this is a big moment.
I asked him, just point blank, "Do you like underage girls?"
And his crisis manager stood up and ran into the shot.
"No! You can't ask him that! You can't ask him that!"
And Kelly said, "No, no.
I want to answer that."
-Let me ask you something. -R. KELLY: Mm-hmm.
Real. That millions of Americans are thinking about.
-Okay. -Do you like teenage girls?
When you say teenage, h-how old are we talking?
Girls who are teenagers.
-19? -19 and younger.
I have some 19-year-old friends,
but I don't like anybody illegal,
if that's what we're talking about, underage.
This is the first easy, obvious, simple softball question.
"Do you like teenage girls?"
You just got off a child pornography trial.
Obviously you're gonna say no, and then we'll move to something
a little harder and then something harder.
And I'm thinking, you know,
don't let him see that he's made a huge mistake.
Like, that he's ju...
'Cause his face and the question seemed like,
"Wow, like,
wow, teenage girls, like, I love this subject."
I assumed that that would get cut out.
And when it finally aired, I was like,
"Oh, my God, they aired it."
I felt sorry
for his wife because now she's embroiled in everything.
She's attached to him legally.
The abuse had gotten so bad with Robert
to the point I left with nothing.
If you look at my order of protection,
in my restraining order,
it was actually the judge that crossed it out and wrote in,
"He is to have no contact with the children."
After the divorce, people are quick to pass judgment
and they have no idea
that, behind the scenes--
you think I'm living this great life--
I'm in foreclosure court on my house. Why?
Robert stopped paying child support
as a way to punish me.
So people think that I'm living this great, lavish life,
but they don't understand.
I've got lawyers, going back and forth to court.
I'm trying to get him served with an arrest warrant
because you're not paying child support,
which is criminal by law.
I'm dealing with all of this and people just think,
"Oh, well, you know, she wants to come forward now
because them checks stop..."
The checks been stopped, boo.
The checks have been over for a very long time.
That has nothing to do with it.
I have three small children that I had to think about
before I could come forward.
That's a lot for my children to deal with.
I had to make sure my children were okay
before I could come forward.
I had to make sure, emotionally,
they were where they could handle it.
JERHONDA: I went to his trial
because I was a superfan at the time.
I didn't believe he was guilty,
and I didn't want to believe that he was guilty.
I was a freshman in high school.
He was old for me to like him,
but I fell in love with his music.
After Robert's trial, his friend
sent me a message and invited me to R. Kelly's party.
And in the middle of me texting him back.
Rob-- he actually called my phone.
And he was telling me, he's like, "I remember you."
And I said, "Well, what do you remember me from?"
He said, "You came to my trial. Thank you for your support."
I was shocked.
I felt like I was on top of the world.
Having a music star,
like R. Kelly, pay attention to you
would be phenomenal, make you feel very special.
She is a lifelong fan.
Someone who, even though
she's sitting through the trial, looking at the images,
she still doesn't want to believe it
because in her mind-- and she was so young--
this is the person that spoke to her through music.
He invited me back to his mansion in Olympia Fields,
and he told me to bring a bathing suit.
By this time it was like
a little bit after my 16th birthday.
I did lie about my age and tell him that I was 19.
What we know about teenagers is that their long-term planning,
that part of their brain hasn't developed yet.
They feel the excitement and the rush of things,
but they don't necessarily have the brain capacity
to make the best decisions.
Insert an adult that has nefarious motivations,
and that person
can use all of those things to his advantage.
JERHONDA: He said, "Don't let anybody
know where you're going"
and he said, "And from now on, when you, uh, talk to me,
you're gonna call me Daddy."
And I said, "Okay."
And he said, "Okay, what?"
And I said, "Okay, Daddy."
And then I hung up the phone.
And looking back on it,
I was naive.
♪ ♪
JERHONDA: When Rob invited me to his house,
I was 16 years old.
I was excited.
I was like, "Oh, my gosh, this is so unreal."
I didn't tell anyone I was going to his house.
It was like a little secret.
He was getting ready for
a pre-listen party for his album Untitled.
We were just talking back and forth.
And he talked about
being molested as well-- he told me he was molested
by a older guy in his neighborhood.
And one of the females
that used to watch him was sexually abusing him as well.
And I felt like we had a connection
'cause I told him I was sexually abused when I was four,
when I was six, and when I was eight years old.
NORCOTT: Women who have histories
of child sexual abuse
are more likely to be victimized as adults.
She could have trouble asserting herself,
um, advocating for herself.
And so, for somebody who is targeting potential victims,
that's gonna be an attractive target for them.
JERHONDA: I felt like, "Wow. So I'm not the only one.
I'm not alone with the whole sexual abuse thing."
And I felt like Rob confided in me,
and I felt like I was confiding in him as well.
When I hear of a perpetrator or someone who's opening up
about their sexual abuse, two things pop up for me.
Number one: the individual is really looking
for someone to talk to about this.
Option two is: "I'm going to use this story as a way
of manipulating and getting people to come closer to me."
Hey, look at my pain, identify with it, feel for me,
allowing me to project my aggressive behavior onto you.
JERHONDA: At Rob's mansion,
he had a jungle-themed pool
and he actually called it "the safari pool."
And it had a nice slide, and the water changed colors--
it was blue, green, purple.
He told me to go into the bathroom
and to change into my swimsuit.
And when I came back out,
I was just waiting by the pool, and when he showed up,
he sat down and he told me to, uh,
get up and start walking for him.
"As if you're modeling."
So, I walk back and forth.
It was back and forth, back and forth.
And he said, "Okay, now, when you walk up, I want you
to remove a piece of your, um, swimsuit."
And I looked at him and I sai,
"You want me to take my swimsuit off?"
He said yes, he told me not to ask questions,
to just do it.
So I said, okay, well, this is R. Kelly
and he told me to take my swimsuit off,
so that's what I'm going to do.
So I walked back and forth
and then I removed my top, and he told me
to remove my bottoms.
And he grabbed me and then we started kissing.
And he started fondling my breasts.
And I stopped him and I said, "I'm a virgin."
And he said, "Well, that's perfect.
"That means I get to train you
and I get to take your virginity."
And that's when he proceeded
to do oral sex on me.
And he told me to do the same thing on him.
Just oral sex.
Right after, Rob asked me my age.
And that's when I didn't tell him my age,
I handed him my ID, and he looked at it,
and that's when-- then I said I'm 16.
And he told me, "Okay, what is that supposed to mean?"
He said to "continue telling everybody that you're 19"
and to "act 21."
MISS INFO: After R. Kelly was acquitted,
suddenly there's this blank slate, right?
Which is so delusional for us
to kind of feel like, "Oh, it's all good now."
And it's okay for me as a journalist to say,
"Yeah, I want to go to R. Kelly's house
"and hear him play his new album.
I would love to do that."
And I did that.
And it was like such a bizarre fortress.
Cavernous, like, mazes.
There was an indoor pool.
And then there was this little tiny studio room
where he just sat down at a piano
and sang like an angel.
And then I walk away
and I had to sort of write this and-and be true to myself,
and I, and I basically said that
I have a lot of feelings about R. Kelly.
He was acquitted, so I chose to leave
those feelings at the door.
I was awed by being in front of, like, this incredible talent,
which is unde-undeniable.
And then I, when I walked out of the door,
I picked all of those sort of feelings back up.
And I think that that's what a lot of fans
have been doing for many, many years.
JERHONDA: I'm sitting on the bed
and I'm just waiting for Rob. He came in...
and he told me that it was time for him to take my virginity.
We just, um, had sex, you know, me bent over on the couch,
and I told him it was a bit uncomfortable,
but I just went with it.
I was like, okay, whatever. It was, um, painful.
So I'm like, okay, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.
It wasn't... It wasn't extravagant.
I wasn't like, "Oh, I lost my virginity."
Like, "This was so good."
It was just, it was just--
I guess I just lost my virginity.
JERHONDA: When I went to Rob's house,
I always felt like the chosen one,
but then, after being there for a while,
I started seeing other girls around the house.
I'm in this room,
I'm sitting on the bed, and I'm just, uh, waiting for,
uh, Rob to give the next order, pretty much.
When he opened the door, he walked in
and he saw me on my phone.
And that's when he explained
that I can't be on my cell phone.
That started the, the rules.
(distorted): I've known R. Kelly for about 20 years.
I was around him a lot,
and that's when I started to notice the system
of how girls are handled and that it was real off.
They couldn't have communication with other people.
They're not even allowed to communicate with each other.
I had to give him an update about everything.
Like, if I was about to brush my teeth, I had to let Rob know.
If I wanted to take a shower, he had to know.
And then, uh, when guys came around,
I had to put my head down
or I had to turn and face a wall.
When you disobey him or you question him,
that's considered breaking the rules.
Perfect example-- there was one time Rob and I
was talking about basketball.
He likes the Chicago Bulls.
And I said, you know, I like the, the Cavaliers.
And he said,
"No, you like the Bulls." I was like,
"I don't like the Bulls," and that was a problem.
Rob slapped me in my face.
And he told me, "Well, guess what.
You're not eating." And I said,
"Okay, this is a joke." I thought he was just
playing around.
The no-eat list is somebody who "disobeys Daddy."
That's when he decides to starve you.
The longest I've gone without food
at his house was three days.
I was surviving off water and some peanuts that I had.
FORMER EMPLOYEE (distorted): When a girl is confined
to the tour bus
or to a room, um, there would always be
a possibility that she would go
more than a day or two without food.
PRODUCER: Can you describe the physical abuse?
(stifled crying)
(voice breaking, stammering)
(stifled crying)
-I-I'm sorry. (sniffles) -It's okay.
NORCOTT: Abusers often use
isolation, so they'll have, slowly over time,
isolated a girl or a woman from her family.
And then say, "There's nobody else for you.
Nobody else cares about you but me. Where are you gonna go?"
JERHONDA: I started to believe that I was nothing without Rob.
I started to believe that Rob was everything.
And he became... he became everything for me.
Back in 2009, Rob pretty much just sent me out on a hunt,
like, "Go find somebody," and I was like, "Dominique."
You know, I thought Dominique was perfect.
Dominique and I had met on MySpace.
We was fans of his. We just...
bonded and we had a really good friendship going
based on liking R. Kelly.
MICHELLE KRAMER: The girl, Jerhonda, started coming over,
like on the weekends and then during the week, and then...
You know, they was like best friends.
She was
hanging out with her.
But I'm thinking it's the movies,
I'm thinking it's bowling.
Things that teenagers do. But it wasn't.
She had a girlfriend that called me
and said, "Do you know where Nikka's at?"
And I said, "Yeah, she's with her friend."
She said, "She's been lying to you.
Nikka has been seeing R. Kelly."
And I was like... (scoffs) "Girl, what'd you say?"
JERHONDA: I didn't see my friend Dominique in the house,
but I knew Dominique was there
because we would both sneak and be on our cell phones,
and that's when Dominique was sharing that, you know,
Rob, any time he felt like she was doing
something silly, he would slap her.
And me and her used to
always try to meet up in the house,
and it never worked out.
We were both on our cell phones texting each other like, "Okay.
"I'm gonna call and ask to go to the bathroom right now.
"You call and ask to go to the bathroom.
"We're gonna meet at this bathroom,
on this side of the house."
So I would be in, like, one of those locations,
but we never, ever got the chance to meet up.
MICHELLE: I called the police.
And Olympia Fields Police met us there.
And it was carloads
of young girls just going in.
So she came home.
I'm hollering, I was shouting.
I was saying, "This is a grown man, he's sick.
You know he just got off on some charges."
And, um, I said,
"Give me his phone number."
He answered.
I said, "R. Kelly, this is Michelle Kramer.
"So I want you to remember my name.
"Okay?
Stay the (bleep) away from my daughter."
REPORTER: According to the report,
he's keeping young women in a cult-like atmosphere.
It's been two years now. We still haven't seen our daughter.
KANIKA: He would beat me, and I just started thinking
of ways to, like,
either end my life or end his.
I saw my daughter, I hugged my daughter,
I kissed my daughter.
I done came too damn close.
Are you kidding me?
I'm gonna continue to fight.
That's what mothers do.