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The allegations of child molestation and abuse have followed R. Kelly for most of his career.
From marrying Aaliyah when she was 15 and he was 27, to just recently when he was accused of running a sex cult with a group of young women.
During some of those years, from 1996 to 2009, the singer was married to Andrea Kelly, who hasn’t spoken about the accusations, nor the child pornography charges her ex-faced when that video surfaced.
But in a new interview on TV One’s Sister Circle, Andrea decided to tell her story and said she remained silent for all those years because she too was abused by Kelly. The dancer also explained how she finally realized that she was abused.
“God, I need an answer today, not tomorrow, not in an hour, I need it now,” she tearfully described. “And the first thing God told me, He said, ‘Grab your laptop,’ and once I grabbed the laptop, God said, ‘Put in domestic violence.’ And I’m thinking to myself, I’m not that girl. I’m not the teeth missing, I’m not the broken bone girl.”
“I kept scrolling,” Andrea continued. “And at the end of the domestic violence awareness website, there was a questionnaire. There were 17 questions, and they ask you has your abuser ever done … and of the 17 Robert had done 15 to me.”
Andrea was then asked why she decided to tell her story now, considering she’s been divorced from Kelly for nearly a decade. She said it was a matter of first gaining strength, which would eventually allow her to develop a voice and some perspective.
“I was not strong enough,” she admitted. “How can I be a voice for the voiceless when I don’t even have my own? How can I be powerful for the powerless when I don’t even have my own? So I had to wait until God said, ‘Okay daughter, it is time.’”
Andrea’s interview comes just weeks after Kelly was sued by a woman named Faith A. Rodgers, who accused the singer of sexual battery, false imprisonment and failure to disclose a sexually transmitted disease.
Kelly hasn’t responded to Rodgers’ claims yet, nor has he said anything about Andrea’s interview.