The woman testified anonymously but has previously spoken
out publicly about her experiences with the singer. CNN is not naming the
witness, who testified as "Jane Doe."
She is the eighth witness to testify at Kelly's federal
trial in Brooklyn, where he is facing racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
On the witness stand Monday, the 23-year-old woman said she
was a Florida high school junior when she met Kelly at a music festival, and
that after a member of his entourage handed her his phone number, she reached
out to him for advice on entering the music industry. She was 17, she
testified, but she told Kelly she was 18.
Doe said she spent months going to Kelly's shows across the
country and testified that he directed her to tell his assistant to book her
travel. Their relationship quickly became sexual, she testified, and then,
violent.
Kelly, dressed in a black suit with a mustard-colored shirt
and a black face mask, was emotionless during her testimony, which was visible
to media and members of the public only through a grainy video feed in separate
courtrooms.
Attorneys for Kelly had no comment on her testimony when
asked by CNN.
During opening statements, defense attorney Nicole Blank
Becker described the female witness as a "long-term girlfriend" of
Kelly, saying she "is just another example of someone who ended up having
a motive."
'I just wanted to sing'
Doe cried softly when she described the kinds of music
classes she was taking and sports she was playing as a high schooler when she
met Kelly. He was 48.
She said she saw him perform at a Florida music festival in
2015 and testified that after Kelly reached out to her in the crowd and sang to
her, a member of his entourage handed her his phone number and said,
"Don't tell anyone."
Doe ultimately reached out to Kelly using the phone number
she'd been given because he was a singer, too, and she wanted advice.
"I felt that any critique would be a good
critique," she testified.
Assistant US Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez said in her
opening statement last week that Kelly told the girl's parents he could help
her with her career.
"He told her she was the next Aaliyah," Melendez
said, referencing the late singer whom Kelly wed when she was just 15.
Kelly asked Doe to audition for him at a nearby hotel a few
days after the concert. When Doe arrived, Kelly asked her to sit on his lap and
kiss him.
"I didn't necessarily want to," she testified.
He then invited her up to a room at the hotel, according to
her testimony.
"Before I could audition, he needed to
(ejaculate)," she testified he told her.
Doe testified that Kelly persistently tried to persuade her
to have sex with him or let him perform sexual acts on her, saying if she
agreed, he would take care of her "for life."
"I didn't necessarily care for that. I just wanted to
sing," she said.
At some point during their time in the hotel room, officers
knocked on the door because the girl's parents had been unable to get a hold of
her, Doe said. When Kelly asked how old she was, she told him she was 18.
'I was trying to run from him and fight back'
After she met R. Kelly in April 2015, Jane Doe began
traveling to meet Kelly at shows he was performing around the country, and
testified that Kelly told her he wanted to teach her "musical techniques
to better me as a singer."
Doe testified that she was told to reach out to one of
Kelly's personal assistants to coordinate travel. Doe testified she sent her
legal birthdate to the assistant, along with the cities Kelly had requested Doe
travel to.
"Mr. Kelly said to get me to LA on an early
flight," Doe said, reading a text from April 2015. Doe read from multiple
similar texts that had been sent to the assistant requesting that she book
travel, allegedly at Kelly's direction.
Doe testified that Kelly began having sexual intercourse
with her in May 2015.
"We had sex almost every day," she testified.
"Every time we had sex, he would record it."
Doe testified that Kelly began recording them having sex
when she was 17, using one of multiple iPads he carried with him in a backpack.
Toward the end of the summer of 2015, Doe testified that sex
became painful.
"I got to the point where I couldn't physically even
walk," she testified.
After visiting a doctor, Doe found out she'd contacted
herpes. She testified she was "devastated" after the diagnosis,
saying she felt Kelly had "purposely given me something that he knew that
he had." She testified that Kelly had not used protection with her on many
occasions and that he had not disclosed he had been diagnosed with genital
herpes several years earlier.
"I had told him (Kelly) and he was agitated and said
that I could have gotten that from anyone," Doe testified through tears.
"I told him that I had only been intimate with him."
Doe said she would "continually" get herpes
outbreaks after having sex with him, to which Kelly responded, "I think
your pussy is broken."
She read from documents she'd created with lists of
"rules" that Kelly had given her and reminders of how to act. She was
not to leave a room she was staying in without asking for permission.
"Stop defending myself. Anything daddy says is to help
me," she said, reading from a handwritten list. "Thank him and be
happy and fix the problem."
Doe said she finally told Kelly she was 17 at the end of the
summer, when she needed to return to Florida to begin her senior year of high
school.
"I was very scared and when I told him, he slapped me
in the face with an open palm and then he walked away," Doe testified.
"He had never hit me ever before."
Eventually, Doe said, Kelly told her "he would speak
with his attorney to figure out everything."
The solution Kelly suggested: "I would need to be
homeschooled and living with him in Chicago," she testified.
She testified that both she and Kelly persuaded her parents
to let her be homeschooled so she could continue to learn about music from him.
Eventually, Doe said, Kelly began to physically abuse her
often.
When she was still 17, Doe testified Kelly told her he would
need to "chastise" her, or spank her, as a "way to help me be
better."
"I would get chastised nearly every two to three days.
Spankings," she testified. "He would leave bruises and sometimes it
would make my skin tear."
The spankings eventually led to beatings, she testified. One
day, when she was still 17, she said Kelly beat her after learning she had told
friends about her sexual relationship with the singer, according to her
testimony.
Kelly hit her on her face, her arms, her buttocks -- all
over her body, she testified, saying he even grabbed one of his Air Force 1
Nike shoes and hit her with it.
"I was trying to run from him and fight back but I was
no match," Doe testified.
She testified that she is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, and that
Kelly is 6 feet tall.
Through the years, she became a part of Kelly's group of
girlfriends. Every year they would get together and write letters, at Kelly's
direction, that claimed each of the girlfriends had committed an act such as
stealing.
"They (the letters) were to basically exploit us to
protect him," she testified.
Doe testified she became pregnant in 2017 and that Kelly
pushed her to have an abortion.
"He had expressed that he had still wanted me to keep
my body tight and he wanted to have a family after he got rid of the rest of
the girls," Doe testified.
Doe testified that, in addition to letters the girlfriends
wrote that were meant to protect the singer, Kelly also directed them to create
embarrassing or damaging videos that could be used against them.
In one video, Doe testified that Kelly directed her to smear
feces on her face.
"He told me exactly what to do in the video," she
testified. "He told me to smear it in my face and what to exactly say and
to, like, put it in my mouth and act like I enjoyed that."
"Did you want to be doing that?" Assistant US
Attorney Elizabeth Geddes asked.
"No," Doe replied. "I did not."
She testified that after she made the video, Kelly told her
she didn't look like she was "into it" enough and asked her to refilm
it, which she did not do.
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