R. Kelly is no stranger to controversy.
Sordid details about his former marriage to Andrea, a.k.a. "Drea" Kelly are among a long
line of serious allegations that have been leveled at the R&B star over the years.
Let's take a closer look at the circumstances surrounding their rocky union and contentious
divorce.
Distress and upset
R. Kelly has been accused of coercing more than one woman into terminating a pregnancy,
but he apparently got baby fever not long after his marriage to Andrea.
The singer had three children with his backup dancer-turned-spouse over the course of six
years, but according to Andrea, his behavior may have threatened the well-being of his
youngest child with her before he was even born.
During Lifetime's influential Surviving R. Kelly docuseries, Andrea alleged that the
singer made her pack up and move to Florida during the late stages of her pregnancy with
no explanation whatsoever.
She said in an interview on the show,
"I was under so much stress that when we went to the OBGYN, they couldn't find his heartbeat.
I was in that much stress that it put my unborn child's life in jeopardy.
Because here I am, by myself in Florida, I don't know anybody."
It all collapses
After being allegedly forced to move to Florida, Andrea has said she had to go through multiple
people in order to get in touch with her husband, even though she was on the verge of giving
birth.
But despite her efforts to get in contact with him, Kelly remained a no-show.
Shortly after his son Robert Jr.'s birth, the baby boy's father was indicted on 21 charges
related to the production of child pornography.
Andrea has since revealed that she found out about the charges the same way most people
did, from the news on TV.
The development made her literally collapse.
She said on Surviving R. Kelly that, shortly after giving birth to Robert Jr.,
"I was with the baby, and then it comes across the screen like, 'R&B singer R. Kelly has
been arrested for child pornography.'"
Luckily for Andrea, her best friend was with her at the time.
When she heard the news, she said she went faint, and nearly dropped her newborn.
As she recalled,
"My body went limp, and [my friend] said she caught little Rob before he hit the floor.
I remember a buzzing sound, it almost felt like I couldn't hear."
Fearing for her life
It was more than just the things he's alleged to have done to other people that caused Andrea
such distress.
She also alleges that her Grammy-winning ex-husband was physically violent with her on numerous
occasions over the course of their marriage, and says that she suffers from a post-traumatic
stress disorder as a result of the alleged beatings.
"You don't even believe in your own sense of judgment after a while.
And you're trying to figure out, 'How do I get him back to the good space?'"
According to Andrea's version of events, one violent encounter with Kelly in the back of
a vehicle left her feeling that she was going to be killed.
During an appearance on The View, she said that Kelly pinned her down in the backseat
of a Hummer, pressing his weight into her neck and preventing her from breathing.
She says she probably would have died had she not managed to voice a plea for help.
"The only reason why I think I made it out is because I said, 'Robert, you're gonna kill
me, I can't breathe, you have to get your arm off of my neck.'"
The mother of three shocked viewers as she relived those moments of panic, saying she
could physically see her skin turn blue from lack of oxygen.
"And I just thought, 'Oh my god.
I'm gonna die in the back of this Hummer, and he's gonna drive off with my body in the
back seat and nobody's gonna know."
This wasn't the first time a woman feared she'd be killed by Kelly.
One woman who had a relationship with the songwriter, Lisa Van Allen, believes he even
went so far as to discussing actually having her killed after she stole the illicit sex
tape that caused the initial charges of child pornography to be brought against him.
Driven to the brink
The alleged abuse R. Kelly heaped on his ex-wife became so severe that Andrea has said she
contemplated taking her own life.
Speaking in an interview with People, the Hollywood Exes star said,
"It started with yelling and being slapped and grabbed.
He chips away at your self-esteem, your ability to even think.
You're just thinking, 'What do I do to not piss him off?'"
Andrea has shared many examples of the domestic violence her husband allegedly forced upon
her, including sexual assaults, physical attacks, and being tied up against her will.
In one of the most distressing incidents, she alleges that her husband locked her inside
of a bathroom at a hotel, an experience which she said then led her to consider jumping
off of the building's balcony.
Speaking to People, she later said,
“Thank God I didn't.
After that I said, 'I'm done.'
In 2004 I called my dad, packed my bags and left with our kids in the night."
Faith in rescue
Realizing that her troubles with R. Kelly were making her contemplate ending it all
was the moment Andrea says that her outlook shifted for good.
Studies have shown that it can be incredibly difficult for those in an abusive relationship
to simply walk away from their violent partner, for a variety of reasons.
For Andrea, what helped her see the light was an online questionnaire, as well as a
desire to set an example for her kids.
After talking herself down from the hotel balcony, the professional dancer and choreographer
says she turned to God for answers.
Luckily for her, as well as her three children she would have left behind, she got them.
Speaking through tears on The View, Andrea recalled the events that led to her final
realization that she needed to leave at all costs.
She said,
"The first thing God told me, he said, 'Grab your laptop.'
Once I grabbed the laptop, he said, 'Put in 'domestic violence.'"
Andrea has said that she had never before seen herself as a victim of domestic abuse,
but her research told her otherwise.
One self-check survey, she said, listed 17 different questions about acts a person's
abuser may have done to them.
Of those 17, she said, quote, "Robert had done 15 to me."
Those 'sex cult' claims
In 2017, Jim DeRogatis a journalist who has written several articles on Kelly’s alleged
crimes, published a bombshell investigative piece via BuzzFeed News, alleging that the
singer was keeping a number of young women against their will in an arrangement the parents
of the missing girls described as a cult.
According to the explosive report, two extremely worried parents told DeRogatis that their
daughter had been, quote, "brainwashed" by the older man.
Three former members of Kelly's inner circle confirmed to the journalist that as many as
six women lived in the celeb's various rented properties around Chicago and Atlanta at the
time.
According to the article, he allegedly controlled, quote, "what they eat, how they dress, when
they bathe [and] when they sleep."
The article struck a chord with Andrea, who claims to have lived under the same harsh
conditions for years.
Unable to shake the thought that helpless young girls and their families could be going
through the same things she did at the hands of her ex-husband, she decided to speak out.
"No, actually, it was seeing a young lady on another talk show, and some of the things
she had described in detail, I had been through, I mean, verbatim."
Andrea says that hearing other women had shared her experiences with R. Kelly gave her motivation
to go on the record with her own, to help make all of their stories easier for a skeptical
public to believe.
As she put it,
"I wanted to bring validity to these women's stories.
So much of it falls on deaf ears and no one believes them…
I was like, 'If no one else is going to speak up for her, if no one else is going to believe
her, at least she knows that I do.'
It's about saving lives."
Another side of the story?
We've heard his former wife's side of the story, but what does the man at the center
of the accusations have to say for himself in response?
R. Kelly and his camp maintained radio silence after Surviving R. Kelly aired.
A TMZ source has claimed he's going to, quote, "sue everybody who had anything to do with
[it]," but there's been no official statement from the singer.
However, the singer has openly discussed his divorce from Andrea in the past, in his 2012
memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me.
Fans of R. Kelly were quick to dissect Soulacoaster, but so were critics, and many of them found
the book severely lacking.
A review from Slate stated,
"R. Kelly's memoir is an entertaining read, but too many skeletons stay in the closet."
Consequence of Sound felt much the same way, with the outlet’s writer saying,
"... the blatant omissions and ultra-condensed versions of things are a solid indicator of
what this book is not: An objective account of R. Kelly's life."
One person who would no doubt agree with those critics is the singer's ex-wife.
Kelly's book implies that one of the reasons his marriage to Andrea failed was because
she wasn't comfortable giving up her career for the sake of her kids.
As for Andrea, she strongly denied that version of events during a June 2018 interview with
Sister Circle, saying,
"Robert, you don't get to tell my story.
You don't get to tell people that we got divorced because I had a problem with being a stay-at-home
mom.
We got divorced because I was no longer going to sit and be violated.
What he did to me was criminal."
Turning blind eyes
Could R. Kelly really have gotten away with all of this monstrous behavior for so many
years?
Perhaps, but as Andrea and accusers have alleged, he couldn't have done it all in complete secrecy.
According to a report by Rolling Stone, the singer allegedly had beds placed conspicuously
in every room of his recording studio, which surely would have tipped some visitors off
to less-than-savory behavior.
According to Andrea, plenty of people were exposed to Kelly's alleged violent and predatory
side but refused to call him out on it.
In fact, Kelly's ex claims that he actually had a number of people helping him get away
with things that they all knew he shouldn't be doing.
During her interview for Surviving R. Kelly, Andrea was asked how a person as famous as
Kelly could get away with such extreme misbehavior.
After a moment of contemplation, she answered:
"Because he has people helping him."
Andrea claims that her former partner is functionally illiterate, and would need significant outside
help to arrange his supposedly sordid activities.
As she said in the docuseries,
"I'm not trying to be funny, you don't read and write well.
So who's booking these flights?
Who's telling the driver to go pick people up?"
Denying the allegations
According to TMZ, a source who is supposedly in frequent contact with R. Kelly claims the
singer didn't watch Lifetime's record-breaking docuseries on his alleged misdeeds.
But he is, to quote the gossip outlet, "disgusted" by the accusations made during its six episodes.
The artist has generally avoided making direct comment on the many allegations in the series,
but has made a significant general statement on the topic in a 19-minute song.
It's just as bizarre as it sounds.
In 2018, Kelly released the epic-length track "I Admit," in which he seemingly confesses
to some contentious things about his life: just some, though.
In the lyrics, the singer appears to confirm many private details about his life, such
as his illiteracy, but he doesn't address the accusations of abuse made against him
by his ex-wife Andrea or numerous other women.
Andrea is sticking to her guns and continuing to share her side of the story via social
media.
In one Instagram post from January 2019, she wrote,
"No longer willing to silence my PAIN AND SUGARCOAT THE ABUSE I ENDURED because of how
my abuser and his LEGAL TEAM were THREATENING to come against me if I 'didn't choose wisely.'
NO MORE!"
The proud survivor further claims to have plenty more to say on the topic of her notorious
ex, so chances are we haven't heard the last of Andrea Kelly just yet.
If you think you or someone you know could be the victim of domestic abuse, please call
the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).