Surviving R. Kelly

I was the first girl,

and nobody believed me.

And after that, it continued to happen again...

...and again

and again.

We're grown girls,

but we're still little girls that cry silently.

If you weren't there,

you'll never understand it.

- Robert, how do you feel? - Was it you on the tape?

- 14 years old. I met R. - Kelly when I was 14.

- When I met him, I was 17. - 15.

A lot of people saw that pee tape.

It was circulating in the streets.

She was actually 14.

And he's urinating on her, in her mouth.

Jurors found him not guilty on all charges.

He was not thought of as guilty,

even though the evidence was there.

After R. Kelly got off trial,

I do the interview.

He was very nervous.

Do you like teenage girls?

When you say "teenage,"

h-how old are we talking?

Singer R. Kelly has denied

repeated claims of sexual misconduct,

but now some of his alleged victims are speaking out

in a powerful new docuseries.

#SurvivingRKelly was trending

at number one on Twitter during its debut.

The whole thing was eye-opening,

painful, sad, disappointing.

Man, how complicit we all have been.

I was extremely moved by that whole show.

It was-it was very heavy for me.

My only question is,

as we're being so judgmental, we're not saying,

"Yo, that man is sick. - That man needs help.

That man need..." -Nobody gives a **** about that.

If that was your daughter, that **** not sick, he's dead.

We can talk about the cycle of abuse,

but we also have to talk about accountability

and the ways in which America has not held

abusers accountable.

Within days, Kim Foxx, the state attorney,

- holds a press conference. - The recent allegations

against entertainer R. Kelly

in the recent Lifetime docuseries

are deeply, deeply disturbing.

Victims of sexual assault,

please come forward.

Two days after the documentary airs,

he's celebrating at a nightclub.

Hey, y'all **** don't know.

It's my **** birthday, and I don't give a ****

what's going on tonight.

RCA dropping him from the label.

Everything in that documentary was a rehash

of things they've known for years,

and everybody rejected it.

R. Kelly turned himself in

to Chicago police Friday night.

He is being charged with ten counts of felony sexual abuse.

Prosecutors say three of the four alleged victims

were underage.

He's pleaded not guilty.

I was a part of a suicide pact.

If he was to go to jail,

I was supposed to kill myself.

The new charges against Kelly came

after a video surfaced reportedly showing Kelly

having sex with a girl who was 14 years old at the time.

The trial in 2008 was reduced

to one girl on one videotape.

But there always was talk of other tapes.

Earlier today,

we handed over a second videotape to prosecutors.

There are multiple tapes, multiple jurisdictions,

and the victim is cooperating with authorities.

It's game, set, match.

At the premiere,

somebody had called in a gun threat.

People started

DMing me and say, "Count your days."

His manager threatened

to kill my whole entire family.

This is intimidation and retaliation.

R. Kelly believes

he can fly

and that he's untouchable.

- Shame on you! - Shame on you!

- Shame on you! - Shame on you!

Mute R. Kelly!

Mute R. Kelly!

R. Kelly has been arrested

on sex trafficking charges.

Free R. Kelly!

Anybody who goes against him,

they go against you.

I think the interview

with Gayle King showed how he really is.

You're killing me with this ****!

30 years of my career!

- Yes, sir. Yes, sir. - You understand me?

I got a million **** hating me

and 40 billion **** loving me.

- That's right. - You know what I'm saying?

I am handcuffed, like a lot of you ****,

I'm handcuffed by my destiny.

It's too late. They should've did this **** 30 years ago.

It's too late.

I know my mama is turning over in her grave.

I...

All I care about is my brother.

I love you, Rob.

Me and Robert, we done been through a lot of things

in our life.

He's still my brother.

Robert can't handle this.

He just can't.

He can't handle... he can't handle this kind of stuff.

Robert is used to hiding with his music.

But there's no music to hide with now.

He can't get to no music now.

To come from nothing,

nothing,

and achieve world acclaim

as a status,

to go full circle, to come to nothing,

that's got to be...

the most horrible thing

anybody could endure.

Especially to come from nothing.

When we moved from the project in the South Side of Chicago,

we moved to 463 East 40th St.

Our entire family

lived in that one building.

My mom, grandmother,

great-grandmother, cousins,

sister, us brothers--

all in this one house.

That address

was really significant in all our lives.

Growing up, as kids, Robert was timid.

He was always scared.

The kids in the neighborhood didn't know Robert.

They only knew me and Bruce,

um, because we was out there playing.

And he didn't come outside.

He stayed in the house and played with his keyboard.

Bruce was the oldest brother, so...

Bruce was the protector.

He was always looking out for Robert.

This place is where we could really remember our childhood,

where we flourished at.

We formed a band.

We kids though. We just kids.

Our mama gave us instruments for Christmas.

So, once I picked up the drum set

and I'm making noise, and my older brother,

Bruce, he start playing the bass guitar.

And we was all self-taught. We never went...

took classes or anything for this.

And my mama was a great,

phenomenal singer.

That's where Robert get the voice from.

The moment that he opened his mouth and sang,

we all knew that he was special.

And we're looking at this frail-bodied kid,

like, "Where's that voice coming from?"

We doing all these songs and stuff.

We doing these at school.

We doing 'em on the back porch.

And they marveling at us.

You know?

That building where we practiced at--

there was a man living on the third floor.

His name was Eli Henry.

He had to be 60-something years old then.

Mr. Henry was the neighborhood uncle.

Everybody loved him and looked up to him, you know?

And he used to go to the f... to the farm.

He would go out to... way out to the farm and get apples

and oranges and cherries

and bananas and things like that

and bring it back to, you know, the-the neighborhood and stuff.

So we just thought he was a cool old man.

Nice guy.

And then he started

buying usstuff.

You know what I'm saying? Buying us things and stuff.

You know, back then,

I didn't think about it,

because I was a child.

There's no demographic that you can name

that has not been touched by sexual violence.

And people don't realize that the relationship

between perpetrator and survivor

is a-is a tricky one, oftentimes.