R Kelly’s vile ‘cult’ – ‘Brainwashing, humiliation, violence and sex training’

R. Kelly has been jailed for 30 years after being found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering

Image: TANNEN MAURY/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

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R. Kelly has been jailed for 30 years after he was found guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering in September last year.

Prosecutors wanted a minimum 25-year term, while his defence team argued in court papers that he should only be given a 10-year sentence because of he suffered, "a traumatic childhood involving severe, prolonged childhood sexual abuse, poverty, and violence."

He is still facing child abuse imagery and obstruction of justice charges, for which he will be tried in Chicago on August 15.

The rapper, 55, has been in jail since he was arrested in 2019 following the release of the harrowing Netflix docu-series, Surviving R. Kelly.

Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - groomed, imprisoned and 'trained' young and often vulnerable women to be his sex slaves, according to the bombshell TV series.

R Kelly was previously found guilty on all charges in his sex trafficking trial

Image:

( TANNEN MAURY/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

The rapper set up a 'cult' of young women - largely picked out of the crowd at his shows - to abuse and keep hostage for his own sexual gratification, it alleged.

Kelly previously threatened to sue original broadcasters Lifetime if it aired the show and denied all accusations.

Chillingly dubbed The Pied Piper of R&B, the show claimed he kept the women locked up with only a bucket to use as a toilet to forcing them to perform degrading and depraved group sex acts, here's how his alleged victims claimed life was living in the 'cult'.

His 'pet sex slave'

Divorced single mum, DJ Kitti Jones, claimed she was groomed, imprisoned and sexually abused by the rapper after they met at one of his shows in June 2011.

On their first meeting, she claimed he barged through the door of her hotel room and masturbated on the sofa before 'training' her to give oral sex.

"He was like a drill sergeant even when he was pleasuring me. He was telling me how to bend my back or move my leg here. I'm like, 'Why is he directing it like this?' It was very uncomfortable. But he tried to make me feel special about [the trip]. Like, 'If I didn't really like you, I wouldn't have done that, and I wouldn't even be wasting my time flying you out, and I respect you,'" she told Rolling Stone in 2017.

Kitti Jones said she met R Kelly at one of his shows

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( Kitti Jones/Instagram)

He also allegedly dropped disturbing hints about mysterious women he had 'raised', and told Kitti he would only introduce her when she was 'mentally ready'.

According to Kitti, he convinced her to quit work and move into his Chicago apartment by offering to pay double her salary.

And once there she said she was banned from talking and looking at his male employees; forced to text Kelly her every movement and to wear baggy sweatpants when out so as not to look attractive.

Their relationship apparently turned violent when she confronted Kelly about the video at the centre of his 2008 child pornography trial, which allegedly showed him urinating into the mouth of a 14-year-old.

Kelly was acquitted on all charges because the identity of the female could not be established, and Kitti claimed he “turned into a monster” when she brought it up - kicking and slapping her in the first of an alleged 10 assaults in the first year alone.

In 2013 he moved her out of his main home and into a flat attached to his recording studio in Trump Towers to make way for what she believes was a new girlfriend.

There she says she was confined to her room and ordered to text his staff if she needed food or the toilet. Kelly would allegedly take her phone away as punishment, with Kitti claiming she once went two and a half days without eating.

Unbeknown to her at that point, other women were also apparently being held under similar conditions in different rooms of the apartment.

The women he 'raised'

The darkest chapter of Kitti's alleged ordeal began in March 2013, when Kelly allegedly brought in a naked woman and ordered her to perform oral sex on Kitti, telling her, "I raised her. I've trained this b**ch. This is my pet.’"

R. Kelly leaves the Leighton Criminal Court Building after a hearing on sexual abuse charges in Chicago

Image:

( AFP via Getty Images)

From then on, Kitti claims he forced her to have sex with women he would fly in, and that she would be punished if she refused.

She vomited after performing oral sex on one of his girlfriends because she felt so demeaned, but said the worst moment was when Kelly allegedly urinated on two women while she performed a sex act on him with them.

According to the DJ, Kelly recorded everything and sometimes made her give him oral sex while he watched footage of other women he’d forced to have sex on his iPad.

"It was just a game for him. He just went back and forth [on them] when he was peeing and told [another girlfriend] to clean it up afterwards. That was the worst that I've ever seen,” she said.

Kelly’s rep rubbished Kitti’s claims that the sex and day-to-day running of their two-year relationship was anything other than consensual.

The spokesperson said: "Mr. Kelly is aware of the repeated and now evolving claims of [Ms. Jones]. It is unfortunate that Ms. Jones, after public statements to the contrary, is now attempting to portray a relationship history with Mr. Kelly as anything other than consensual involvement between two adults.

"As stated previously, Mr. Kelly does not control the decision-making or force the actions of any other human being, including Ms. Jones, by her own admission. Any claim of wrongdoing of any kind or of mistreatment of any woman by him is false, ill-motived and defamatory.”

His 'boy toy'

Another alleged victim is Dominique Gardner, who was a braces-wearing teen before she met R. Kelly in 2009.

By the time her mother, Michelle Kramer, managed to track her down in the docu-series, Kelly had allegedly singled her out to become his 'boy toy', shaving her hair and dressing her in boys clothes.

"She’s a little tomboyish, and Robert plays on that, so he has molded her into the boy he wants her to be," a former employee said.

"So he’s had her shave all her hair off, he has her carry herself like a boy. He’s even had her dress in boy clothes and paint a beard and a moustache on, to look like a boy. He treats her like his boy toy."

The series saw Michelle rescue Dominique from a hotel, only for her daughter to go back to Kelly three days later. She later returned home with her mum.

The ones who got away

Lizzette Martinez met Kelly in a shopping mall in Atlanta when she was 17, and claims she lost her virginity to him after he got her drunk for the first time.

Soon after, she said he began intimidating her, allegedly warning, "I have my boys following you and know everything you’re doing.”

His ex-wife Drea Kelly auditioned to be one of his back-up dancers when she was 19. He later married her in secret before allegedly banning her from talking to anyone and keeping her locked up in their home.

She eventually escaped with their three children.

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