- A second
R. Kelly accuser testified Monday in the singer's federal sex-crimes trial. - She detailed how she was ensnared in Kelly's orbit at 17 and abided by a bizarre system of rules.
- She said police interrupted her first sexual encounter with Kelly to offer the singer more security.
A second accuser in R. Kelly's federal sex-crimes trial recounted in shocking testimony Monday the bizarre rules she said the singer imposed on her and the cruel punishments he exacted when she broke them.
The accuser, who went by the pseudonym "Zel" in court, told the jury how Kelly - whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly - flew her to his concerts around the country while she was a high school student and repeatedly had sex with her.
Kelly imposed a litany of rules while she lived with him, the woman testified, including a requirement that she welcome him as "daddy," that she ask for permission to use the bathroom, and that she urinate in "extra-large cups from the gas station" when she did not receive permission.
The woman is one of six anonymous Jane Does whose stories are detailed in an indictment from federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. While she had shared parts of her story with members of the media before trial, Insider does not publish the names of people who make sexual-misconduct accusations unless they agree to be identified.
Prosecutors have accused Kelly of directing employees to secure women for sex. The second accuser followed testimony from Jerhonda Pace, who also said Kelly first had sex with her when she was underage and detailed the various ways he controlled the minutiae of her life.
The entire trial is expected to last four weeks and has so far included testimony from one of Kelly's doctors about the R&B singer's sexually transmitted diseases, and from a tour manager about arranging a sham marriage with the singer Aaliyah.
Police offered Kelly extra muscle after checking up on the underage woman
The woman testified that she first met Kelly when she was 17, after one of his employees gave her his number at a tour stop in Orlando, Florida, in April 2015. She said she was "not romantically interested" in Kelly and teared up on the stand as she recounted her teenage ambitions to be an R&B singer.
She texted and FaceTimed with Kelly after the concert, hoping he could critique her work. The woman testified that she falsely told Kelly she was 18 years old in those messages and, at his behest, agreed to meet him for an "audition" at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel in Orlando.
As they went up to the room, she said Kelly made it clear that he wouldn't talk about her singing career without first sexually satisfying himself.
"He told me before we went inside to turn my phone off because sometimes people try to report him," she said.
The accuser told Kelly she was uncomfortable with doing anything sexual, but Kelly persisted, she said. She testified that she eventually acquiesced to walking back and forth in the hotel room in her underwear while Kelly stimulated himself.
"I just thought that would be better than having sex with the defendant," she said.
The woman said Kelly insisted on performing oral sex "to allow me to audition and to take care of me for life." Kelly took an iPad out of his backpack to record the encounter, she said.
At one point during the encounter, there was a knock at the door, the woman testified. She said Kelly grew nervous and ordered her to get dressed in the bathroom.
When Kelly opened the door, police officers said the woman's parents were worried because they couldn't reach her over the phone, she recalled. She testified that while she told the officers she was 18, she handed them her ID card, which showed her actual date of birth.
The officers then told Kelly that "any time he was back in Orlando and needed security to give them a call" and left the room, she testified.
A crash course in Kelly's bizarre rules
The accuser testified that she often declined sex when Kelly demanded it, but he persisted. She said Kelly told her the visits would help her advance in the music industry.
During one stay at a bedroom that was part of Kelly's music studio in downtown Chicago, the woman said she wasn't allowed to use the bathroom - down a hallway on the same floor - without Kelly's or his assistant's permission.
Sometimes she didn't receive it and urinated in cups instead.
"They would get extra-large cups from the gas station," she told the court. "And in the bedroom in the studio, there were tissues and baby wipes."The woman said she stayed at Kelly's homes in Atlanta, where they'd have sex almost every day that summer. She described his rules growing more exacting: He would command her to walk or crawl or perform oral sex on him, and she had to obey.
"He would say everything specifically, and I would follow exactly every thing he said," she testified.
Kelly recorded every sexual encounter on his iPad, she said, and sometimes would show her a few seconds of video to boast about "how good we looked."
After the woman told Kelly she was underage, he made arrangements
The woman testified that she told an assistant of Kelly's who made her flight arrangements that she was really 17 but otherwise didn't mention her real age.
As the summer ended, the woman and Kelly visited Chicago. She said that she told the singer the truth while they were in Lincoln Park: She was 17, not 18, and she had to go home to Florida to finish high school.
"When I told him, he slapped me with an open palm, and he walked away," she testified.
She recalled trailing behind him, fearful and alone in a strange city, as Kelly fumed. Eventually he calmed down.
The woman said she went home to Florida and attended school there for about a week before Kelly persuaded her parents to allow her to live with an employee's mother and take online classes.
The woman's mother signed documents that would put her under the care of the employee's mother until December 30, 2015 - when the accuser turned 18.
Kelly severely punished violations of his rules
The woman testified that throughout her five-year relationship with Kelly, he physically abused her and other girlfriends living together in a "guest house" in Atlanta when they broke his long list of rules.
If it was a minor rule, she said he'd spank them in a "chastising" to make them "remember" the rules. Kelly would also sometimes beat other women with slaps and punches, drag them by their hair, and hit them with objects, the accuser said. She said the women also could be made to stay in rooms for days or make embarrassing videos of themselves, including smearing feces on their faces.
She recalled two instances of more severe punishment.
On one occasion, a man sent Kelly a text message with the accuser's name and a rat emoji. The singer confronted the teen, and she testified that she denied that she'd told a friend she'd been intimate with Kelly. She said Kelly punched and slapped her and all over her face and body, then retrieved a size 12 Nike Air Force 1 sneaker from his closet and continued to "hit me until I broke" and admitted the lie.
On another occasion, the accuser said she was locked in a room for more than three days after buying size extra-small sweatpants instead of large ones. The woman recalled that the room didn't have a lock, but she was afraid to leave without Kelly's permission.
Despite the severe punishments, Kelly would speak to the accuser as though they had a future together and would one day start a family - but made it clear he was in charge of when that would happen.
In 2017, for example, the accuser learned that she was pregnant.
"The defendant made me get an abortion," she testified. "He had expressed he still wanted me to keep my body tight and that he wanted to start a family when he got rid of the other girls."