"Surviving R. Kelly" spotlights the stories of multiple women who allege that they were in abusive relationships with superstar R. Kelly. The explosive Lifetime docu-series that everyone's talking about traces Kelly's childhood in Chicago and meteoric career, which includes Grammy Awards, numerous hit songs like "I Believe I Can Fly" and "Ignition (Remix)" and working with everyone from the Notorious B.I.G. to Britney Spears.
One of the most interesting aspects of the docu-series is Kelly's personal life away from the public glare. Behind the hit records and his persona as a sexually-charged bad boy, Kelly had a family and multiple alleged pregnancies that took place out of wedlock.
Here's what we know about R. Kelly's family.
Andrea Kelly
Andrea Kelly was a 19-year-old dancer from Chicago when she first met R. Kelly. Although his own brother says that she wasn't his usual "type" in the doc, the two hit it off. They were married from 1996 to 2009 and have three kids together:Jay Kelly (formerly Jaya), Joann Kelly, Robert Kelly Jr. Andrea maintains that she knew nothing of her husband's extramarital affairs with young girls and says that she was kept in the dark on purpose. She shares an anecdote in the docu-series about being so stressed about his child p*rnography indictment in 2002 that she almost collapsed while holding baby Robert Kelly Jr.
In 2017, Andrea shared a video from The Shade Room of that child, now a teenager, rapping.
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In 2014, it was reported that daughter Jaya had come out as transgender.
Lizzette Martinez
Lizzette Martinez was a budding teen singer when she began seeing Kelly after they met at a mall in Florida. Like many of Kelly's other underage victims, she claims he was abusive and controlling. She reveals that she got pregnant during their affair andasserts that R. Kellypenned Michael Jackson's hit "You Are Not Alone" about herafter she miscarried their child. She ended up leaving him after she alleges he gave her mono.
Aaliyah
Aaliyah was a promising protege when she and R. Kelly linked for her 1994 debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number.Sharing the same manager, Barry Hankerson, Kelly and his team took the teen under their wing and gave her a cool, sexy image. Aaliyah would go on to call Kelly her "best friend" publicly but beneath the surface, they were harboring an illicit affair. The pair got marriedsecretly in 1994 (she was 15 and he was 27) after he allegedly thought that she was pregnant.Kelly’s former tour manager Demetrius Smith makes the pregnancy claim in the docu-series, but no furthermention about if it was true or what happened thereafter is shared.
Lisa Van Allen
Lisa Van Allen was a longtime girlfriend of R. Kelly for nine years. She was one of the two young women featured in the sex tape that lead to his 2002 child p*rn indictment. Looking back, she says she was horrified that the other girl in the video was 14, something she says she didn't know at the time. Van Allen shared with BBC last year that she terminated a pregnancy with Kelly.“I loved him. I just didn’t feel comfortable enough to have a child with him,” she says.
The tape weighed on her mind, Van Allen said in the docu-series.
"I was concerned if it would be a girl what i’d have to deal with," Van Allen says. "He did this with someone else's child, what would keep him from doing it to mine?"
Patrice Jones
Patrice Jones, who said she met R. Kelly in a Chicago McDonalds in the late 1990s, claimed that Kelly got her pregnant when she was 17 and forced her to get an abortion.
In 2002, she filed a suit in Chicago accusing Kelly of criminal sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress, seeking $50,000 in damages, as MTVreported. In the suit, she alleges Kelly paid for and had his employees arrange the abortion at Family Planning Associates.
[Photo: Getty Images]
