Accused sexual abuser R. Kelly once compared himself to Jerry Lee Lewis – a singer notorious for marrying his 13-year-old cousin decades ago – saying they were both geniuses, a witness at Kelly’s Brooklyn trial testified Thursday.
A woman who only went by ‘Stephanie’ said she was 17 during her six-month relationship in 1999 with the then 32-year-old Kelly.
She testified about remembering a conversation with the R&B artist and two others when he said he preferred ‘young girls’ and questioned why ‘people make such a big deal of it.’
‘Look at Jerry Lee Lewis,’ she said, quoting Kelly, now 54, as saying, referring to the influential rock and roll pioneer who controversially married his 13-year-old second cousin in the 1950s.
R. Kelly, seen here in a court sketch at federal trial in Brooklyn, once compared himself to Jerry Lee Lewis – a singer notorious for marrying his 13-year-old cousin decades ago
‘He’s a genius and I’m a genius. We should be able to do whatever we want,’ Kelly is alleged to have said.
‘Look at what we give the world.’
Lewis is credited with helping create rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s and achieving stardom with hits like ‘Great Balls of Fire.’
But his marriage to his cousin Myra Gale Brown caused a scandal that has dogged him through the rest of his career. In 1970, Brown filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and abuse, charging that she had been ‘subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable.’
Stephanie, now 39, is the third accuser to take the stand against Kelly, who’s on trial in Brooklyn federal court for racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and forced labor between 1994 and 2018.
Lewis’ marriage to his cousin Myra Gale Brown caused a scandal that has dogged him through the rest of his career
Stephanie said she first met Kelly at the infamous Rock N’ Roll McDonald’s in Chicago.
She claimed that a man came up to her and asked her age. She responded that she was 16.
The man then pointed to Kelly, who was sitting in the booth nearest to the register, and asked whether she knew who he was. She said yes.
The man allegedly gave Stephanie a piece of paper with Kelly’s phone number on it, and told her to call him.
She claimed she threw it away and didn’t see him until a year later, when he was holding a promotional event at a Nike store near where she worked. She said she approached him hoping he could help her friend, an aspiring singer.
That help never came but Stephanie and Kelly soon after began a sexual relationship, with the superstar brushing it off when told him she was only 17, according to her testimony.
A woman who only went by ‘Stephanie’ said she was 17 during her six-month relationship in 1999 with the then 32-year-old Kelly
She described sex with Kelly as ‘humiliating,’ describing in lurid detail his demands, and claiming he routinely filmed their sexual encounters.
‘He was one of two ways: nice and charming, jovial. Or he was controlling, intimidating, he could put the fear of God in me,’ Stephanie said. ‘He humiliated me, he degraded me, he scared me.’
He once forced her to perform oral sex on him in a vehicle with others in the car, she said, and sometimes left her naked and alone in rooms for hours.
‘He could put the fear of God in me very quickly,’ she said, saying she performed sex acts because ‘I didn’t feel like I had a choice,’ saying she’d suffered past abuse both at home and by a former boss. She also said she feared what the singer would do with their sex tapes.
Kelly allegedly met Stephanie and many of his other victims at Chicago’s famous ‘Rock N’ Roll McDonald’s’
Around the time she turned 18, Stephanie said she decided to stop seeing Kelly: ‘I felt used and humiliated and degraded.’
‘I just didn’t want to be abused anymore.’
Later on, Stephanie said she would sometimes wait for him for hours at his studio, before he eventually emerged and they had sex.
On cross-examination, Kelly’s lawyer Nicole Blank Becker tried to emphasize it was Stephanie’s decision to stay with Kelly, and Stephanie agreed when asked if she could have simply walked away.
Becker asked Stephanie whether Kelly had physically abused her. Stephanie said no.
Becker then tried to suggest that she engaged in a sexual relationship willingly with the singer, and that she didn’t remember everything correctly.
On re-direct examination, the prosecution asked her whether there were things she would never forget. She answered yes.
When asked why she would never forget them, Stephanie put her face in her hands and started crying.
‘Because that was the lowest time in my life. I’ve never been treated like that before or since,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget the way he treated me.’
Many accusations of sex-related misconduct were discussed in the 2019 Lifetime documentary ‘Surviving R. Kelly.’
Several witnesses have testified that Kelly demanded strict obedience from those around him, with Stephanie and other accusers saying he required that they call him ‘Daddy.’
His alleged exploitation of male and female employees has also come into question. Earlier Thursday, Tom Arnold, who worked at one of Kelly’s Chicago studios, said he eventually quit his job as studio manager because of the singer’s system for docking employee pay over such slights.
Kelly is accused of being the leader of a sex ring involving women and underage girls and boys.
Kelly is accused of being the leader of a sex ring involving women and underage girls and boys
The studio manager testified that Kelly had a strict system of fining employees for rule-breaking, with several workers losing out on money because someone ate the singer’s donuts.
Arnold, a Kelly employee since 1988, worked at the notorious Chocolate Factory since 2004 but the last straw came during what was a ‘very last-minute’ trip to Disney World in 2011.
He was told to book a tour guide for Kelly and some female guests. There was no one available and they had to book a male tour guide.
This went against Kelly’s rules, Arnold said, that prevented his girlfriends from being around other men – to the point where they couldn’t look at them in the eye if they were in the same area.
‘It needed to be a woman,’ Arnold said on the stand in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Stephanie reiterated these rules during her testimony, mentioning that at the dinner where Kelly compared himself to Jerry Lee Lewis, they were supposed to be joined by the rap duo Boo & Gotti.
She said that she was not allowed to speak to either of them.
‘I wasn’t meant to speak to any men except for Mr. Kelly,’ the 39-year-old said.
Arnold, who worked at one of Kelly’s Chicago studios, said he eventually quit his job as studio manager because of the singer’s system for docking employee pay over rule-breaking
When Kelly and his girlfriends arrived at Disney World, the singer got off the tour bus, saw the tour guide and immediately canceled the trip. He then fined Arnold $1,500, his entire paycheck for the week.
Arnold quit soon after.
Kelly, known for the Grammy-winning song ‘I Believe I Can Fly,’ has pleaded not guilty to charges that he ran a decades-long racketeering scheme in which he abused six women and girls, including Jane and the late singer Aaliyah.
He’s vehemently denied the charges, claiming that the women were groupies who wanted to take advantage of his fame and fortune.
The federal trial is expected to last several weeks and, if convicted, Kelly could face life in prison. He also faces sex-related criminal charges in Illinois and Minnesota.
Additionally, Kelly is charged in a bribery scheme after he paid a $500 bribe in 1994 in order to get breakout singer Aaliyah, who was 15, a fake ID so he could marry her. Kelly allegedly feared that he had gotten the teen pregnant.
After a day off Friday, Kelly’s trial will resume Monday in Brooklyn.