The ex-wife of R&B star R Kelly has accused him of numerous incidents of domestic violence.
Andrea Kelly was married to R Kelly from 1996 to 2009. Speaking on US talk show The View, she said one incident in the back of a Hummer left her fearing for her life, as R Kelly pushed his forearm into her neck. “I said, ‘Robert, you’re going to kill me. I can’t breathe’ … I just thought, ‘Oh my God. I’m going to die in the back of this Hummer.’” She said the incident left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Another alleged incident involved Kelly being left “hogtied” on their bed, with her arms and legs tied together, as he slept next to her. She had previously filed for a protective order from him in 2005, saying he had hit her when she asked for a divorce.
She said she came close to suicide during the marriage, at one point climbing over a railing of a balcony. “I looked down and God allowed me to see myself laying in blood,” she said. “That was my darkest moment ... The fact that I was willing to leave [my children] let me know the best thing you have to do for you and your children to live is leave [him].”
Andrea Kelly said she came forward with the accusations after hearing the testimonies of other women against him. “You cannot not speak when someone’s life and what they’ve been through is parallel to yours,” she said. “I wanted to bring validity to these women’s stories ... I was like, ‘If no one else is going to speak up for her, if no one else is going to believe her, at least she knows that I do.’”
R Kelly did not respond to The View’s request for comment, though he has long denied the various allegations of sexual, physical and psychological abuse made against him over the last 15 months by seven women, plus the families of two others. They claim he groomed them – some while under the age of consent – in a “sex cult”, in which he controlled every aspect of their lives and punished them with physical abuse (though after a goodwill check, one of the women whose family had expressed concern assured police she was “fine” in Kelly’s company). Kelly’s management company compared the accusations to a “public lynching” and called them a “greedy, conscious and malicious conspiracy to demean him”. R Kelly himself released a song, I Admit, in which he addressed the claims, singing “I’m so falsely accused”.
• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.
