Buku Abi, the daughter of imprisoned R&B singer R. Kelly, claims in a new documentary series that her father molested her as a child.
Abi, born Joann Kelly, details the alleged abuse for the first time publicly in the two-episode TVEI Network docuseries R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey.
“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,” Abi says in the trailer.
Related: R. Kelly’s Appeal Rejected by Supreme Court
She goes on to share that her childhood was shattered by the alleged abuse.
“I really feel like that one millisecond completely just changed my whole life,” she explains.
Abi, 26, is the daughter of the “Ignition” singer and his ex-wife Andrea “Drea” Kelly.
Abi says she told her mom about the alleged abuse when she was 10 years old.
Andrea Kelly, who has previously alleged that R. Kelly was an abusive husband, also appears in the film.
“What he did to me, he did to me, but you didn’t have to do it to my damn kids,” Andrea says.
In a statement to People magazine, R. Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean says the family’s claims are untrue.
“Mr. Kelly vehemently denies these allegations. His ex-wife made the same allegation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & 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,” Bonjean states.
R. Kelly was found guilty by a federal jury in Chicago in September 2022, on three counts of child pornography and three counts of enticement of a minor to engage in criminal sexual activity.
A judge later sentenced him to 20 years in prison, in addition to a previous 30-year sentence handed down in June 2022 in Brooklyn, New York, on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The Grammy-winning artist is serving the two sentences simultaneously.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the singer.
R. Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey was released Oct. 11. on the TVEI Network, a digital platform created by Mann Robinson Studios to bring original urban programming to audiences.
Watch the trailer below:
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