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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Entertainment
Peter Sblendorio

R. Kelly's assistant, attorney resign following allegations against the singer

A pair of women who worked with R. Kelly for years resigned from their positions amid a wave of harrowing allegations against the singer.

His assistant Diana Copeland and his entertainment attorney Linda Mensch both recently told the BBC they're no longer working with the R&B singer.

Copeland had worked as an assistant to Kelly for over a decade, while Mensch had been his lawyers for four years.

Neither woman went into much detail regarding their resignations, with Copeland telling the British outlet she wasn't employed by Kelly since April 1, and Mensch saying she is "no longer represented Mr (sic) Kelly or his entities."

Their resignations come less than a month after BBC Three detailed explosive accusations about Kelly's treatment of women in a documentary, in which his former girlfriend Kitti Jones claimed Kelly had groomed a woman to be his pet since she was 14.

"I saw that she was dressed like me, that she was saying the things I'd say and her mannerisms were like mine," Jones told reporter Ben Zand. "That's when it clicked in my head that he had been grooming me to become one of his pets. He calls them his pets."

Kelly, 51, was also accused last July of housing multiple women at his homes and controlling much of their lives, from what they wore to what they ate to what they did sexually, in a report published by BuzzFeed and citing people in the singer's inner circle, including Jones.

The parents of one woman, Joycelyn Savage, said they rarely spoke to their daughter after she moved in with Kelly, with her mom telling BuzzFeed, "It was if she was brainwashed." Savage said in a video a day after that report was published that she is "totally fine," denying the brainwashing claims.

Mensch was serving as Kelly's attorney at the time and issued a statement to the Daily News denying the accusations made against him in the BuzzFeed report.

"Mr. Robert Kelly is both alarmed and disturbed by the recent revelations attributed to him," Mensch said in July. "Mr. Kelly unequivocally denies such accusations and will work diligently and forcibly to pursue his accusers and clear his name."

Last week, a woman filed paperwork in Dallas through her attorney that accuses Kelly of giving her a sexually transmitted disease after they started dating last June. The woman claims she was 19 when they began their relationship.

A rep for Kelly "categorically" denied those accusations to the Washington Post.

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