Ex-R. Kelly Backup Dancer Says She Saw Him Performing Oral Sex on Underage Aaliyah
A woman who accused R. Kelly of sexually abusing her as a teen also testified that she saw Kelly performing oral sex on Aaliyah when the late singer was 13 or 14 years old, Vulture reports.
The Jane Doe, who was identified as Angela, testified Monday, September 13th, that she had sexual intercourse with Kelly when she was a minor on multiple occasions during the early Nineties. Angela also said she worked as a backup dancer for Kelly and that she saw him performing oral sex on Aaliyah during a tour in either 1992 or 1993.
Kelly has denied all accusations against him. He is on trial on charges of racketeering, violations of the Mann Act — which prohibits the transport of people across state lines for sexual activity — and sex-related charges in Minnesota. He has pleaded not guilty.
Angela, who was the 10th accuser to testify against Kelly, said she met the singer in 1991 when she was about 15. She said a friend, Tiffany, brought her to a party at Kelly’s apartment in Chicago; at one point, Angela said she was invited into a room where Kelly “asked me to climb on top of him.” While Angela said she hesitated, she said she ultimately climbed on top of him “as he asked me to do.” Angela said she put a condom on Kelly after he said he didn’t have one and testified that the two proceeded to have intercourse. Angela claimed Kelly also fondled and touched other women in the room with his mouth and hands.
Angela said after the party, Kelly invited her and Tiffany back the next day, and she added that she continued to spend time with Kelly “every day for quite a few years.” Eventually, Angela said she dropped out of high school to pursue a singing career because Kelly said she could only do one or the other. While she worked as a backup dancer on Kelly’s tours in 1992 and 1993, Angela was also in a singing group called Second Chapter.
During the tour, Angela claimed, Kelly would punish the girls that didn’t follow his instructions. She claimed that one time after she and other girls returned to the hotel after getting food without his permission, Kelly allegedly told them that “we would all have to put out that night … it was dues time.”
Eventually, prosecutors showed a photo of Aaliyah, whom Angela identified. Angela claimed that Kelly introduced her to Aaliyah in 1992, saying it was on the singer’s 12th birthday (Aaliyah, however, was born in 1979, so her 12th birthday would have been in 1991). Angela remembered Kelly telling her that she was going to be a background vocalist for Aaliyah, and said that Aaliyah joined them on the tour but did not perform. “She was seeing what traveling road life was like,” Angela said. “She was his protégée … getting her feet wet.”
The alleged sexual encounter between Kelly and Aaliyah that Angela said she witnessed supposedly took place on a tour bus. Angela said she and another young woman tried to play a prank on Kelly, and when Angela opened the door to Kelly’s bedroom on the bus, she said, “I saw Robert and Aaliyah in a sexual situation. It appeared that he had his head in between her legs and was giving her oral sex… I closed the door abruptly and pushed the girl behind me away from the door.”
Angela said she stopped working for Kelly in the mid-Nineties. Kelly would eventually illegally marry Aaliyah in 1994 when she was 15 and he was 27; the marriage was annulled the following year.
