In an extensive profile for Rolling Stone, another woman has come forward to accuse R. Kelly of abuse, mirroring allegations against the R&B star that popped up earlier this year when BuzzFeed published a story about an abusive “cult” that R. Kelly allegedly trapped young women in. The latest accuser is Kitti Jones, a former Dallas radio DJ who met Kelly at an afterparty for one of his shows in 2011. She says she was a huge fan of his music—and of him—and at the party he handed her a slip of paper with his phone number and instructed her to call him “daddy.”
After that, Jones says she began a two-year relationship with Kelly that allegedly involved “physical abuse, sexual coercion, emotional manipulation, and a slew of draconian rules that dictated nearly every aspect of her life” including “what and when to eat, how to dress, when to go to the bathroom and how to perform for the singer sexually”—all similar to the accusations from the BuzzFeed story. She says Kelly also made a point to instruct other men in his circle not to interact with her, like telling her to let him know if a driver spoke to her, and she adds that she even watched as two of Kelly’s “male employees” didn’t react at all when she stumbled on a stair once.
By the end of 2011, Jones quit her job to move in with Kelly in Chicago. At that point he allegedly brought up the fact that he had other women he had “raised” that would eventually be moving in as well, and he also allegedly began meticulously managing every aspect of her life by choosing what clothes she could wear, forcing her to give constant text message updates of where she went, and even demanding that she ask for permission for everything (including going to the bathroom). Kelly would also supposedly take Jones’ phone away and prevent her from leaving her room in his apartment, making it impossible for her to get food.
Other women did move in eventually, and Jones says they were all monitored by security cameras and barred from learning each other’s real names. By 2013, Kelly was allegedly forcing them to have sex with each other, with Jones explaining that she’d be assaulted if she refused so she just became “numb to what’s happening.” Jones also says Kelly would punish her more and more frequently, usually with physical abuse, with her telling Rolling Stone, “if I wasn’t getting slapped, I wasn’t eating or my phone was gone.” She even says she considered suicide, figuring, “I can either kill myself or kill him.”
Jones says she escaped from Kelly in September of 2013, coming up with an excuse to return to Dallas and then just staying. She says Kelly didn’t “express hard feelings” when she left, but when he had a tour stop in Dallas later that year he asked her to meet him so he could return some of her things. Instead, he allegedly brought her on his tour bus and started “attacking” her with “a lot of force.” After that, she stayed quiet and tried to rebuild her life, telling Rolling Stone that she “suffered in silence.”
Kelly, of course, has continued to deny all allegations like Jones’ and the ones from the BuzzFeed story.