A new report from Buzzfeed News details an alleged “cult” run by R&B singer R. Kelly.
The extensive piece, written by Jim DeRogatis, quotes distressed parents who have expressed concern about their daughters relationship with the Chicago native.
DeRogatis also speaks with three former employees of Kelly, who corroborate the parents concerns that Kelly houses, and abuses the lives of, six women living in Chicago and Atlanta.
Parents J. and Tim explain to DeRogatis that after previously meeting with the 50 year-old singer under the guise of music industry mentorship, R. Kelly flew their 19 year-old daughter out to a show in 2015.
Since then, J. and Tim have only heard from her twice and the parents have been fighting for her return since they last saw her in 2016. Two other parents featured in the report make similar claims.
In the chilling report, three folks within Kelly’s circle—Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee—explain that the singer dictates every aspect of the girls lives: “what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records” and if rules are broken, they are punished verbally and sexually.
The women are not technically considered missing persons because of age of consent laws.
Though this story is new, DeRogatis has been reporting on Kelly for the better part of two decades.
He most famously reported about sexual assault accusations and lawsuits filed against Kelly for The Chicago Reader—and turned over a 30 minute video anonymously left in his mailbox that later resulted in Kelly being charged with creating child pornography in 2013.
The recent revelations have caused “R. Kelly” to trend on Twitter. Many people have spent the morning expressing their disgust and concern, while also referring to DeRogatis previous work to expose the nefarious side of the singer.
R&B singer R. Kelly has been accused of creating an abusive sex cult of young women known as “babies” who called him “Daddy” — with a “den mother” who “trained” newcomers on how to please him sexually, according to an explosive new report that Kelly denies is true.
Kelly, 50 — whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly — keeps his harems of women in homes in Chicago — including his apartment in Trump Tower — and Atlanta, the website BuzzFeed reported Monday, quoting three named former members of the singer’s entourage.
Kelly’s attorney Linda Mensch tore apart the accusations, telling Page Six: “Mr. Robert Kelly is both alarmed and disturbed at the recent revelations attributed to him. Mr. Kelly unequivocally denies such allegations and will work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and clear his name.”
Kelly’s former entourage members, Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones and Asante McGee, told the site that Kelly exerts control over every aspect of the women’s lives, from what they eat and how they dress — all in jogging suits — to when they bathe and sleep. He also films their sexual encounters with him — and shows them to men in his circle, they said, according to the site.
Jones claimed that Kelly once held her against a tree and slapped her outside a Subway sandwich shop in spring 2013 because she was too friendly with a male cashier there, the site reported.
Besides the 31-year-old “den mother,” the others held at Kelly’s properties as of last summer were a 25-year-old woman who has known the star for seven years, a 26-year-old Atlanta songwriter who got to know Kelly when she was 19, a 19-year-old model and an 18-year-old aspiring pop star from Florida who Kelly considers his “number one girl,” the ex-entourage members told BuzzFeed.
One parent told the site that her daughter had gotten to know Kelly when she was 17 and moved into one of his properties when she was over the age of legal consent. The distraught mom told BuzzFeed that she initially believed her daughter and Kelly shared only a “music relationship” — and trusted him because “He is a lyrical genius — he is R. Kelly!”
Mack, who worked as Kelly’s personal assistant for a year and a half beginning in 2013 and still keeps in touch with others who have stayed close to the R&B star, said many of the girls think that way.
“[They think] this is R. Kelly, I’m going to live a lavish lifestyle,” Mack told BuzzFeed. “No. You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom. … [Kelly] is a master at mind control. … He is a puppet master.”
Another set of parents from Georgia claim their daughter, an aspiring singer, met Kelly backstage at a concert in California when she was 19. The parents say their daughter ultimately ended up dropping out of Gwinnett College and moving in with Kelly. They said they filed a missing persons report with campus police. Page Six reached out to Gwinnett College, which did not immediately return a request for comment.
The couple then requested the Johns Creek Police Department conduct a welfare check on Kelly’s properties. A police report obtained by Page Six said one parent felt “R. Kelly is different from Robert Kelly the man.” It also said the parent claimed the R&B crooner “beats the girls” and that he’s “abusive and controlling her daughter and apart of a cult.”
The report also noted that when police arrived on scene that the “door [was] open, house clear, no one there.”
Police in both Illinois and Georgia conducted welfare checks at the properties in the past year, which did not lead to any arrests, according to the BuzzFeed report.
Kelly had previously been busted on child-porn charges. He was acquitted.
“R. Kelly is the sweetest person you will ever want to meet,” McGee told BuzzFeed. “But Robert is the devil.”