A former R. Kelly backup dancer testified on Monday that she witnessed the disgraced singer perform a sexual act on the late R&B singer Aaliyah when she was underage.
The witness, who was identified as Angela, told the Brooklyn Federal Court that she had sexual intercourse with Kelly when she was a minor on multiple occasions in the early Nineties. Angela, who worked as a backup dancer for Kelly, said she saw him performing oral sex on Aaliyah during a tour in either 1992 or 1993, when the singer was just 12 or 13 years old.
Kelly, 54, has repeatedly denied accusations that he led a criminal enterprise that sexually exploited women, girls and even boys during a 30-year career. His lawyers have portrayed his accusers as groupies who are lying about their relationships with him.
Angela is the 10th accuser to testify against Kelly over the past three weeks. She said that she was either 14 or 15 years old when she first met Kelly in 1991 at a party, and the singer had sexual intercourse with her for the first time that night.
“He asked me to climb on top of him,” Angela said, adding that there were three other young women in various states of undress in the room with them. “I paused for a moment. I was a little startled.”
R. Kelly and Aaliyah R. Kelly and Aaliyah | Image: Hollywood Unlocked
She claimed Kelly asked her to ‘straddle him and ride him.’ She said she did as she was told after putting a condom on Kelly. During the encounter, the singer also allegedly fondled the other young women who were present, according to Vulture.
Angela said she continued seeing Kelly every day for the next few years. She later dropped out of high school and began working as a backup dancer for him. According to the woman, she and other dancers were expected to have sex with Kelly, reported the New York Daily News.
“He told us we had to pay our dues. It was a requirement to be around,” she said.
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 then abruptly shut the door and never spoke to Kelly about what she allegedly witnessed. Aaliyah was about 13 years old at the time of the alleged encounter.
Kelly and Aaliyah were illegally married in August 1994. At the time, Aaliyah was 15-years-old and Kelly was 27. Kelly’s former road manager Demetrius Smith testified that Kelly married Aaliyah to avoid jail time because he believed Aaliyah was pregnant with his baby, theGrio previously reported. Smith admitted to helping orchestrate the illegal union by bribing an Illinois government employee $500 for a fake ID. The ID listed Aaliyah’s age as 18, though a birth date was missing.
Aaliyah tragically died in August 2001 alongside eight others after a plane destined for Miami crashed less than a minute after take-off in the Bahamas.
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