R. Kelly’s daughter Buku Abi accuses the singer of sexually abusing her as a child

One of R. Kelly’s daughters has accused the convicted felon of sexually abusing her when she was just a child.

Buku Abi, 26, said in TVEI Streaming Network’s two-part documentary Karma: A Daughter’s Journey that the disgraced 57-year-old singer abused her when she was about eight or nine years old.

She said she first reported his alleged misconduct to her mother in 2009, when she was about 10 years old.

Kelly (full name: Robert Kelly) is currently serving a 31-year sentence in a medium-security federal prison in North Carolina after being convicted in 2021 and 2022 of multiple counts of child sexual abuse.

DailyMail.com has contacted his lawyer for comment.

R. Kelly’s daughter Buku Abi, 26, accused him of sexually assaulting her when she was just eight or nine in TVEI Streaming Network’s two-part documentary Karma: A Daughter’s Journey

She said she first reported his alleged misconduct to her mother in 2009, when she was about ten years old; R. Kelly is seen in his February 22, 2019 mugshot

‘He was my everything. For a long time I didn’t even want to believe it was happening. I didn’t know that even if he was a bad person, he would do something to me,” Abi said of her father in the documentary’s first episode, via People.

‘I was too scared to tell anyone. “I was too scared to tell my mother,” she admitted.

Abi, born Joann Kelly, refused to share details about the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of her father in the first episode, which premiered on streaming on Friday.

However, she did say that prison was a “suitable place” for her father, a conclusion she came to based on her “personal experience” with him.

She opened up about the ways in which Kelly’s alleged abuse completely changed the course of her life.

Abi added that “one millisecond completely changed my entire life and who I was as a person, and changed the brilliance I had and the light I used to carry.”

In the documentary, she makes it clear that her visits to her father ended after she reported the alleged abuse to her mother, and she said her brother Robert and sister Jaah also stopped visiting him.

But to this day, she still struggles[s] a lot with it.’

Abi (born Joann Kelly) did not provide details of the abuse she allegedly suffered, but she did say that prison was a ‘suitable place’ for her father; depicted in the trailer for Karma: A Daughter’s Journey

She opened up about the ways in which Kelly’s alleged abuse completely changed the course of her life. In episode two she told through tears how she ‘[woke] until he touches me

She waited to tell her mother about the alleged abuse, but once she did, she and her siblings stopped spending time with their father

Abi’s mother Drea Kelly (pictured with ex-husband R. Kelly in the documentary) took her to the police to report the alleged crime as a ‘Jane Doe’, but they were told that Kelly could not be prosecuted because there was too a lot of time had passed.

Abi revealed more details of her allegations in the second episode.

“I remember waking up when he touched me,” she said through tears. “And I didn’t know what to do, so I just lay there and pretended to be asleep.”

The singer said she told her mother Drea Kelly — who also appears in the documentary — what happened, and the two then filed a complaint with the police, calling her a “Jane Doe.”

However, the delay between when the alleged abuse occurred and when Abi told her mother may have reduced their chances of justice.

‘They couldn’t prosecute him because I waited too long. So at that point in my life, I felt like I was saying something for nothing,” she explained.

In a statement to People, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said, “Mr. Kelly strongly denies these allegations. His ex-wife made the same accusation years ago, and it was investigated by the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services and found to be unfounded… And the “filmmakers,” whoever they are, have not contacted Mr. Kelly or his team to even allow him to deny these hurtful claims.”

Although Kelly avoided jail when he was acquitted of child pornography charges in 2008, he was later convicted in 2021 of all nine racketeering and sex trafficking charges in New York.

He was subsequently convicted in 2022 at a federal trial in Chicago of six of 13 charges, including charges of child pornography and obstruction of justice.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison in his New York trial and to 20 years in the later federal trial in Chicago, although the judge overseeing the latter ruled that 19 of those 20 years would be served concurrently with his earlier sentence, which means he has an effective punishment. sentence now 31 years.

Rumors of Kelly’s alleged abuse of women and young children swirled for years, only exacerbated by his relationship with singer Aaliyah.

After working together in the studio, the two had a secret, illegal marriage in 1994. Aaliyah was only 15 at the time, but her age was incorrectly listed as 18 on the marriage certificate.

During a hearing for Kelly’s later case in New York, one of his lawyers admitted to the judge that they did not want to deny that Kelly had sex with Aaliyah when she was a minor.

Kelly was later sentenced to 31 years in prison after being convicted at a New York trial in 2021 and a federal trial in Chicago in 2022; pictured in 2017 in Austin, Texas

The latest allegations against R. Kelly come as rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is currently in federal custody facing sex trafficking charges, as well as several civil lawsuits from women who claim he sexually assaulted them.

The accusations that swirled around R. Kelly for years were solidified in 2019 with the release of the six-hour Lifetime documentary Surviving R. Kelly.

In the wake of the documentary, which detailed the numerous allegations against him, record label Kelly opted to drop him.

Weeks later, he was indicted on criminal charges in Chicago.