R. Kelly's girlfriend Joycelyn Savage, one of the 52-year-old's last defenders, spoke over the weekend in a series of posts detailing how she says she was treated by the R&B singer, who has been behind bars awaiting trial on federal and local charges including child porn and kidnapping.
Savage, who met Kelly in 2015, when she was 19, alleges that the singer choked her, urinated on her and forced her to get two abortions at his home during the four years they were together.
Writing on the paid subscription website Patreon, Savage alleges that, after treating her wonderfully at first and telling her he would help her singing career, Kelly began giving her commands and demanding that Savage, now 24, address him as "Master" or "Daddy." (She announced the Patreon account on her long-dormant Instagram account Friday and again on Saturday.)
Though she was in love with him, she wrote, it only got worse after those first demands. She had no privacy, as Kelly's unspeaking assistants watched her even when she showered.
"Robert had about a couple of houses where we would travel back [and forth] to, and there were certain rooms I couldn't enter such as the basement. Which made me [curious], and it really bothered me not knowing what was behind certain doors," Savage said. "R Kelly has cameras on every property he owned, and I thought it was just to keep him, and his people safe but no it was to keep whatever he was hiding protected."
She couldn't talk to her parents in private and at times was told what to say to them, she wrote.
The Savage family believes the Patreon posts are being written by Joycelyn, its attorney Gerald Griggs said in a TV interview Saturday with Atlanta news station 11Alive, and is attempting to reach out to her through contact information on the Patreon account. "We're about 85 to 90% confident that this is her account," Griggs said.
Kelly's attorney Steve Greenberg did not immediately respond to The Times' request for comment. However, he gave a statement to Variety in which he called Savage's blogging "obvious profiteering." On Patreon, subscribers pay $3 to $25 a month to access writers' content.
"It is unfortunate that Jocelyn now seeks to make money by exploiting her longtime, loving relationship with Robert," Greenberg said. "Obviously if she were to tell the truth, no one would pay, so she has, unfortunately, chosen to regurgitate the stories and lies told by others for her own personal profit. We know the real facts, and it was not until the money ran out that she decided anything was wrong."
Back on Patreon, Savage said that after a few months Kelly began to get angry, especially when he came home drunk. Her phone was cut off, and she couldn't go out without permission. The shopping and going out all ended around February 2016. She began to slip into a depression, she said.
"I kept thinking to myself he just wants me to be safe, he wants the best for me he thinks someone is going to take me away from him. But it was me being delusional why would someone [who claimed to love me] keep me locked up like some damn animal," Savage wrote.
She recalled one incident where she addressed him as "hey babe" instead of by his preferred terms.
"He grabbed me and choked me until I blacked out. I had bruises around my neck, and I was told by him to wear a turtle necks or a scarf to cover them up whenever he would take me out in public," Savage wrote. "I was frightened to tell anyone about this because of what he may do next."
She described lurid details of their sex life, which happened during her allotted time with Kelly. The singer liked to urinate on his partners, she said, and he was into roleplay.
"When I found out I was pregnant with his child I had very mixed emotions, and I didn't want any babies with him at all," she wrote. "Eventually, I ended up getting an abortion I was forced to get the surgery done at his house. I've never had surgery done in my life so that was really shocking and a scary moment for me. He didn't want me going to the hospital because the news would break out."
Savage and Azriel Clary, Kelly's other final girlfriend, were vehement defenders of the singer _ Clary more so than Savage _ in March on "CBS This Morning" with Gayle King and as recently as July via TMZ, where they said they hadn't been evicted from Kelly's apartment.
