Georgia woman Asante McGee says singer R. Kelly was domineering during their relationship. He decided what she could wear outside, made her call him “Daddy” and even had her change her voice to talk like a “little girl,” she said in an interview Monday on the Law&Crime Network. She claimed he forced her into certain acts, and she described the “Black Room”: a sex dungeon.
“When I say, ‘forced,’ it’s not like he held a gun to my head. No, he didn’t,” McGee told Law&Crime Network host Vincent Hill. “But whenever I would disagree to want to participate in it, he would be like, ‘Well, you see the other girls that don’t have a problem doing it. If you really love Daddy the way you love Daddy, then I don’t see a problem.'”
McGee mentions the “little girl” detail beginning at 4:39 mark in the video above.
Kelly pleaded not guilty on Monday to aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection to incidents with three underage girls, and one adult. Prosecutors argued that he pursued relationships with the teenagers and they said there’s video evidence showing the singer in an encounter with one of the girls. As for the grown woman, she was a 24-year-old hairdresser. Kelly sexually assaulted her during an appointment, authorities claim.
Attorney Steve Greenberg denied the charges on Saturday.
“He’s a rock star,” the lawyer said. “He doesn’t have to have non-consensual sex.”
“He’s a rock star. He doesn’t have to have non-consensual sex,” said R. Kelly’s lawyer Steve Greenberg in a press conference after judge sets Kelly’s bail at $1 million. https://t.co/8yZJr9ewUM pic.twitter.com/wJA3B3rjec
— CBS Chicago (@cbschicago) February 23, 2019
McGee said she first met the singer in 2014. He gave her his number, and they’d Facetime for a while. They had their first sexual encounter at a show in Baton Rogue, Louisiana, she said. The relationship continued, with him flying her to cities where he toured or staying with Kelly while he was in Atlanta.
He wasn’t controlling in this early stage, she said, though he would ask her not to let anyone know if she was with him or reveal her whereabouts. Kelly suddenly moved her into his Atlanta home in 2016, she said.
“It wasn’t a conversation that we had,” said McGee, who appeared on the Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly, and wrote the new book No Longer Trapped In The Closet: The Asante McGee Story.
She said she never believed the previous sexual abuse allegations from his 2008 child pornography trial, because he was acquitted.
McGee, who was 35 at the time of her relationship with the singer, maintained on Monday that she never saw an underage girl at the residence, but noted that her relationship with Kelly changed after she moved in. He became more controlling. She said Kelly never hit her, but the closest he came to it was when he grabbed her by the arm and told her to change her shirt. It was hot that day, so she didn’t want to wear what he prescribed, she said.
She also described an incident that she said disturbed her: “One of the young ladies that’s at the house right now” performed oral sex on Kelly in front of her and other people.
“I knew she was young, and somehow she ended up telling me she was 18 years old,” McGee said, saying it disturbed her because it was too close to the age of her eldest child. According to her, she decided leave the residence because of the way he was treating her and the other girls. She said she decided to escape his home after only two weeks there, and finally left in the third.
Greenberg previously spoke with the Law&Crime Network, and denied other allegations of sexual misconduct against the singer.
“He didn’t sexually abuse anyone,” Greenberg said. “He didn’t hold anyone hostage. He didn’t physically beat anyone. He didn’t force anyone to do anything against their will.”
[Mugshot via Cook County]
