Andrea Kelly and R. Kelly were married for well over a decade, from 1996 to 2009. However, during an interview on The View on Monday, Andrea accused her ex-husband of multiple counts of domestic abuse. She said was motivated to speak up after seeing other women come forward with similar accounts against R. Kelly.
Speaking on camera, Andrea Kelly relayed one incident that took place in the back of a Hummer, in which R. Kelly allegedly thrusted his forearm into her neck. “I said, ‘Robert, you’re going to kill me. I can’t breathe,'” she recalled. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God. I’m going to die in the back of this Hummer.’” The harrowing encounter left her dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.
A separate, but similarly troubling instance saw R. Kelly “hogtying” Andrea Kelly to their bed, arms and legs bound together. The R&B singer eventually fell asleep, leaving her in that restrained position.
Andrea Kelly said she had filed a protective order from her then-husband in 2005, claiming that he had hit her when she brought up the topic of divorce. It wasn’t until a few years later, however, when she finally filed for divorce. The final straw came when she, feeling trapped in her marriage, attempted to kill herself.
“I went out on the balcony and I climbed up… One foot was on the railing and the other was on the wall… I looked down and God allowed me to see myself laying in blood,” she remembered. “That was my darkest moment… The fact that I was willing to leave [my children] let me know the best thing you have to do for you and your children to live is leave.” The divorce was made official in 2009, and the two haven’t spoken since.
Andrea Kelly said she had attempted to go public with her accusations, but was met with victim-shaming and backlash. “People actually said, ‘She’s coming out because she needs money’ or ‘She didn’t say anything because she got money,'” she said. “There’s not enough money in the world for any woman to stay and get abused.”
She decided to come forward on The View after hearing other women recount similar instances of abuse by R. Kelly. “You cannot not speak when someone’s life and what they’ve been through is parallel to yours,” said Andrea Kelly. “I wanted to bring validity to these women’s stories … I was like, ‘If no one else is going to speak up for her, if no one else is going to believe her, at least she knows that I do.’”
Watch Andrea Kelly’s interview on The View below:
Andrea Kelly, of course, is just one of many women who’ve accused R. Kelly of abuse. Over the years, he’s faced numerous allegations of sexual misconduct and imprisonment. This past April it was revealed that the singer was under investigation for knowingly transmitting an STD to a 19-year old woman. In July, R. Kelly released “I Admit It”, a 13-minute song in which he addressed some of these allegations while maintaining his innocence.