R Kelly's ex-wife says she attempted suicide to escape their 'abusive and violent' marriage
R Kelly's former wife Andrea Kelly opened up about her marriage to the famous R&B singer and revealed that, at some point in their marriage, she actually attempted suicide. She also spoke about the domestic abuse that she went through and what she had to resort to.
In an interview on the TV One talk show Sister Circle, she said, "That day, I just remember playing sick all day. I went and got in the bed, and I was just like, ‘OK, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?’ And something just said, ‘End it.’ That was my first answer." An emotional Andrea went on to reveal how she had climbed on the ledge of a hotel balcony seriously contemplating jumping down to her death.
She says she then thought about all that she would be giving up and chose to step down from the ledge. "I remember looking down, and it’s almost like God was able to let me see the future. I saw my body lying in blood, and I saw the ambulance coming. I saw housekeeping come out, and they were pointing up, and they said, 'She jumped from up there.' Then, I remember my baby’s voice in the back going, 'Mama, mama… Why did mama jump? Why did mama leave us?" she confessed.
"I said 'OK, God, you have to give me an answer today. What do you want me to do if this is not for me? You want me to leave? What do you want me to do? God, I need an answer today. Not tomorrow, not in an hour, I need it now'," Andrea continued.
She went on to speak about how she searched for information on domestic violence and abuse and also explained how she found an online questionnaire about how to identify whether your partner had committed domestic abuse or violence.
Andre claims that R Kelly was responsible for doing at least 15 out of the 17 things that were mentioned in the questionnaire.
There have been a wide number of individuals who have come forward with sexual harassment, assault, and misconduct allegations against R Kelly. Andrea shared that this prompted her and gave her the courage to speak out and be a "voice for the voiceless".
"I had to go through the trenches; I had to build myself up. I had to go through counseling. I had to even get myself to the point where I had to accept that I am a victim of domestic violence," Andrea stated.
In a section of The Soulacoaster, Kelly's 2013 autobiography, he spoke about the couple's marriage. In response, Andrea stared into the camera and delivered a personal message, "Robert, you don’t get to tell my story. That is my truth. You should have never put me in your book. And if you’re gonna put me in your book, then you’re gonna tell the truth in the book. You don’t get to tell people that we got divorced because I had a problem with being a stay-at-home mom. We got divorced because I was no longer going to sit and be violated. What he did to me was criminal."
The 'ignition' star seemed to have ignited the wrong kind of fire and was accused of training a 14-year-old child to be a sex slave. These allegations were made by a former girlfriend of R Kelly, Kitti Jones. Kitti, who is 34 years old, revealed in a BBC documentary that she was groomed by R Kelly and was also forced to have sex with him and several others at least 10 times, if not more, in a hidden place which Kelly refers to as the sex dungeon.
As reported by the Guardian, "I was introduced to one of the girls that he told me he 'trained' since she was 14, those were his words. I saw that she was dressed like me, that she was saying the things I’d say and her mannerisms were like mine. That’s when it clicked in my head that he had been grooming me to become one of his pets. He calls them his pets."
Kitti also went to reveal some pretty gruesome details about how Kelly made the woman "crawl on the floor towards me and perform oral sex on me, and he said, 'This is my f*****g pet, I trained her. She’s going to teach you how to be with me.'" It is not known how old the woman was at the time. This was not the first sexual allegation made against R Kelly and, in the year 2008, he was found guilty of child pornography charges after he was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old.
In the year 1996, R Kelly had to settle in court with Tiffany Hawkins who said that he had a sexual relationship with her when she was only 15.
In an interview with the Rolling Stone, Kitti shared his response when she confronted him about the child porn images. "He would start kicking me, telling me I was a stupid bitch [and] don’t ever get in his business. [He was] very abusive, physically, mentally, verbally. I think he gets some sort of satisfaction within himself, knowing that he’s taking control over other people," she revealed.