The woman at the center of R. Kelly‘s federal child pornography trial took the stand on Thursday and detailed a horrific set of events in her shocking testimony.
The victim, who is now 37 years old, was a teenager in the late 1990s when she was introduced to the R&B singer. Identified only as “Jane” on the stand, she testified to being coerced into having sex with Kelly “hundreds” of times beginning when she was just 15 years old. Jane is the star witness in the federal government’s case against Kelly and two of his former associates on child pornography and conspiracy charges. According to WGN-TV covering the trial, her Thursday testimony at the Dirksen US Courthouse in Chicago capped “a stunning day” in court.
Related: R. Kelly’s Fiancée Confirms She’s Pregnant With His Baby — And Explains HOW!
On the record, the woman first revealed she met Kelly as a 13-year-old in about 1998 through her aunt. Eventually, her aunt convinced the girl to ask Kelly to become her “godfather.” The disgraced R&B star acquiesced — but weeks after agreeing, Jane testified, he began making sexual advances towards her.
At first, Kelly would allegedly ask about the color of her underwear and tell her “he was pleasuring himself” while the two were talking on the phone. Then, as a 14-year-old, Jane testified Kelly began to give her alcohol. Soon she began drinking heavily, and Kelly appeared to take pleasure in it as a way to gain access to the teenager.
On the stand, Jane recounted:
“It would help me loosen up, kind of take me away from the moment.”
By the time she was 15 years old, Kelly’s alleged acts escalated to physical touching and sex. Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeannice Appenteng about whether the pair began meeting to have sex, the woman had a definitive one-word answer on the stand:
“Yes.”
When Appenteng asked how Jane recalled the situation so many years later, the woman said:
“Because that’s when I lost my virginity.”
Ugh.
Jane testified she and the singer had sex at Kelly’s Chicago home, in his recording studio, and around the country on tour buses and in hotels in cities where he was performing. She alleged Kelly tightly controlled her sex life:
“He would tell me what to do.”
When the prosecutor asked how many times these acts occurred while she was still younger than 18 years old, Jane dropped the biggest bombshell of the day:
“Uncountable times. Hundreds.”
Absolutely horrific…
At the center of Jane’s testimony this week is her involvement in Kelly’s prior 2008 child pornography trial. In that case, Jane was allegedly the (then-underage) woman seen in the infamous video tape at the center of the investigation. However, she did not testify in that case, and Kelly was acquitted. A few years prior, in 2002, she denied having been sexually involved with Kelly in separate testimony before a Chicago grand jury.
On Thursday, however, her story changed. In this new testimony, Jane finally publicly addressed the nature of her relationship with the singer, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, when she was still just a teenager.
For one, she testified Thursday that she was the girl seen in the infamous video investigated in Kelly’s 2008 trial. She explained that she felt “beholden” to Kelly at the time and didn’t want to risk losing him. Jane claimed the two even discussed getting married at one point:
“I was afraid that something bad would happen to Robert. I wanted to protect him so I did everything I could to keep it a secret. That was something I was going to take to my grave. It was instilled in me not to admit that to anybody and that’s exactly what I did.”
WGN-TV reported Jane was on the stand for more than four hours on Thursday. Appenteng asked at one point why she chose to reveal the video tape information now. The woman paused for a long time on the stand and reflected before saying:
“I became exhausted with living with his lies.”
So sad.
Her testimony is scheduled to continue on Friday. Prosecutors have also introduced as evidence three videos that allegedly show Kelly “engaging in sex acts with Jane,” per WGN-TV. Here is more on the trial, and the videos introduced into court:
Wow.
Related: R. Kelly’s Ex-GF Claims He Pressured Her To Lie In Shocking CBS Interview
Of course, Kelly is already serving a 30-year prison sentence after being convicted in a federal court in New York in a sex trafficking case earlier this year. Still, these new revelations from this woman are shocking, anger-inducing, and heartbreaking. Reactions, Perezcious readers?
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