R. Kelly is reportedly being sued for sexual battery. A woman named Faith Rodgers has come forward and said that she was intimidated into a relationship with R. Kelly and that he would lock her up in a car for up to eight hours at a time. She is now suing him for “sexual battery” and “willfully, deliberately and maliciously” giving her herpes. She also claims that he “mentally, sexually, and verbally” abused her.
Rodgers believes that Kelly was planning on bringing her into a group of women who travel with him…a group of women he “raises.”
“He goes on to tell me that he raises five women. Some of them had been with him for 15 years. And he basically was trying to make it seem like it was a family thing. He described these women as being his family. Then he goes on to tell me, ‘You know what? I love you because you remind me of them.'”
The parents of one of those women, Joycelyn Savage, tried to get authorities to remove their daughter from Kelly’s home in 2017. They believed that she was pulled into a sex cult of sorts being run by Kelly. However, Savage denied those claims, telling the press that “I’m fine and happy. I haven’t been brainwashed.”
Kelly has been involved in questionable situations with young women for a number of years. In 2008 he was acquitted of child pornography charges after allegedly making a sex tape with a 14-year-old girl. Multiple women have claimed to have been abused by Kelly as a part of a sex cult, an allegation that he has always denied.
Rodgers was asked why she continued to be involved with Kelly until the point that she decided to walk away. She explained that the situation was complicated.
“It’s not like all the time he was just, you know, this devious person. There have been times where he’s crying. And he’s telling me, you know, about his children, about his ex-wife…comparing himself to Michael Jackson and how, you know, how the media destroyed him. And he felt like that’s that what was going on in his life.”
