R Kelly’s daughter to share ‘heartbreaking secret’ about disgraced father in new documentary
‘I will not be taking my son to prison to meet his grandfather,’ Joanne Kelly said in a trailer for ‘R Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey’
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R Kelly’s daughter, Joanne Kelly, speaks out against her disgraced father in the forthcoming documentary R Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey.
From Tvei Network, the documentary features “raw and emotional” interviews with Joanne, as well as her siblings Jaah Kelly and Robert Kelly Jr, plus their mother Drea Kelly, as they share the “dark reality of living in the shadow of one of the most notorious figures in music.” Drea was married to the R&B artist from 1996 to 2009.
In the documentary’s official trailer, released on September 29, Joanne, 26, tells the camera: “Nobody wants to be the child of the father that is out here hurting women and children.
“He knows exactly why we can’t have the relationship that we would have liked to have with him,” she says, tearfully adding: “He was my everything.”
According to the movie’s official logline, Joanne will “bravely share her untold story” and reveal “a heartbreaking secret that shattered her childhood and changed her forever.”
“For a long time, I didn’t even want to believe that it happened,” she continues in the trailer. “I didn’t know that, even if he was a bad person, that he would do something to me.”
“Just because you’re not a good husband doesn’t mean you can’t be a good father – and the fact that he doesn’t even try,” Drea says. “What he did to me, he did to me. But you didn’t have to do it to my damn kids.”
In 2022, the “Ignition – Remix” singer, 57, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a New York jury found him guilty of racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
A year later, a Chicago jury convicted him of illegal sexual activity as well as three counts of creating pornography that showed him abusing a minor. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison to be served at the same time as the previous sentence.
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He is currently incarcerated at FCI Butner Medium I in North Carolina.
Earlier this year, he attempted to appeal his 20-year sentence. In his appeal, he argued that Illinois’ former and shorter statute of limitations on child sex prosecutions should have applied to his Chicago case rather than current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive.
Kelly also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence that became a focal point of the Chicago trial.
However, state prosecutors rejected his arguments, and upheld the 20-year prison term.
R Kelly’s Karma: A Daughter’s Journey is out on October 11.