The Biggest Takeaways From the Second Night of ‘Surviving R. Kelly’

While Kelly was on trial for child pornography, fans started showing up in Chicago to offer their support for the singer. One of those “superfans” was Jerhonda Pace, who says she had short conversations with him as he proceeded in and out of the courtroom. At the time, she was 14 years old. She says Kelly got in touch with her “a little bit after [her] 16th birthday” and invited her to his house.

Pace says Kelly confided in her about his own history as a sexual abuse victim as a way to get closer to her. “He talked about being molested as well, and he told me he was molested by an older guy in his neighborhood” she says. “I felt like we had a connection, because I told him I was sexually abused when I was 4, 6, and 8 years old.” Pace says Kelly began fondling her, and she stopped to tell him she was a virgin. She says he responded by telling her, “Well, that’s perfect. That means I get to train you and I get to take your virginity.” Pace adds, “That’s when he proceeded to do oral sex on me. And he told me to do the same thing on him.”

Pace had initially told Kelly she was 19 years old, but when she finally gave him an ID and revealed that she was 16, she says Kelly replied, “OK, what is that supposed to mean?” Pace adds, “He said to continue telling everybody that you were 19, and to act 21.”

Pace says Kelly had strict rules for her and other girls who were at his house. “I had to give him an update about everything,” she reveals. “If I was about to brush my teeth, I had to let Rob know. If I wanted to take a shower, he had to know. Then, when guys came around, I had to put my head down, or I had to turn and face a wall.”

Sharing a story about how Kelly’s trivial arguments led to physical abuse, Pace says, “He likes the Chicago Bulls, and I said I like the Cavaliers. So he said, ‘No, you like the Bulls.’ I was like, ‘I don’t like the Bulls.’ And that was a problem. Rob slapped me in my face and he told me, ‘Well, guess what, you’re not eating.’” Pace adds, “The longest I’ve gone without food at his house was three days. I was surviving off water and some peanuts I had.”

Pace says she was asked to help recruit other girls, who ended up being victims of Kelly. “Back in 2009, Rob pretty much sent me out on a hunt, like, ‘Go find somebody.’” She befriended a 17-year-old named Dominique. But once Dominique was in the house, Pace says they were never allowed to meet up and see each other again.

Lisa Van Allen says she took a sex tape from Kelly that depicted her, Kelly, and an underage girl in a sexual act. After giving it to a friend, she says she feared that it would be publicly released, so she went to Kelly in hopes he could help her get it back. Kelly’s lawyers reportedly believed that Van Allen took the tape as part of an attempt to extort money from Kelly. As she recounts dealing with Kelly’s associates in the third episode of Surviving R. Kelly, she says, “I just didn’t know that there was a point in time where they were talking about killing me.” Van Allen shared a similar story with Essence during a 2009 interview, saying she said she was told, “You know what? I thought you were going to be honest. I should have had you murked from the beginning like I wanted to.”

Kelly’s brother Carey Kelly was reportedly offered a large sum of money to back off from his public claims that the allegations of abuse were true. "Robert simply asked Carey to tell the truth and do a deposition with his attorneys that the things he was saying was not true," Kelly’s older brother Bruce Kelly says. "He said, 'If you do this deposition with my attorneys, I will give you $100,000 and a one-record contract deal.'" Carey did not accept the deal.

Singer Sparkle says she was offered a large payment to change her story as well. "They offered me high in the six figures for me and Robert to have a sit-down with all media around us to say that Sparkle and I are OK," she says. "I didn’t take the money, because I can’t be bought." She adds, "I really don’t know if my family was paid off. I know the family was still hanging out with him. My brother-in-law was still playing guitar on a lot of his songs."

Before the infamous “pee tape” surfaced, Kelly seemed to understand that his habit of making sex tapes would lead to trouble. “He came to me and told me about the video tapes,” says Demetrius Smith, Kelly’s former tour manager and personal assistant. “[He said], ‘You gotta help me, man. We gotta pray, because these videos, I can’t stop taping myself.’” Smith adds, “I didn’t know what was ahead with those tapes, but Robert did. He used to come to me, and he used to talk to me about that. He said, ‘Man, this is going to get me in trouble, man. I can’t seem to stop. These are going to destroy me.’”

Kelly’s ex-wife Andrea Kelly says he had a large group of people around him who allowed him to get away with his alleged crimes. “You have your team, you have your cover-up people, you have lawyers settling claims out of court,” she points out. “Not trying to be funny, but you don’t read and write well, so you’re not booking flights. Who’s booking these flights? Who’s telling the driver to go pick people up? Who’s getting these hotel rooms? He’s not doing it alone.”

Kelly’s former tour manager and personal assistant, Demetrius Smith, admits, “It was the same routine [every day], because he can have his way. We work for him, and this is what he wanted, so this is what we were supposed to get him.”

Kelly continued to have commercial success in the music industry after the sex tape and allegations came to light. Singer Sparkle reveals, “One young exec stated, ‘I don’t care if that is him on that tape, because we can’t afford to lose him.'” Later, Sparkle points out, “I can’t remember any artists speaking out against Robert regarding this tape.”

During a short segment in the fourth episode, a juror named John Petrean from Kelly’s child pornography case is interviewed. Speaking about why he sided with Kelly (who was found not guilty), Petrean says, “I just didn’t believe them, the women. I know, it sounds ridiculous. The way they dress, the way they ask, I didn’t like them. I disregarded all of what they said.”

Chicago Sun-Times journalist Mary Mitchell says Kelly kept ex-wife Andrea Kelly away from the world when they were married: “It was like she was locked up on their estate and she wasn’t allowed out. There were stories that even if she wanted to get her hair done or get her makeup done, people had to come to her. She wasn’t allowed to come out.”

Andrea Kelly says the emotional trauma led her to thoughts of suicide. “I remember going out on the balcony and climbing up on the ledge, like, ‘God, I can’t take another day. I can’t do this anymore,’” she says. “He had taken me to a place where I was willing to leave my babies.”

Speaking about the violence Kelly inflicted on her, Andrea adds, “I went to the National Domestic Violence Awareness Hotline, and there are 17 questions. There was only two things on that list that Robert hadn’t done to me.” Andrea says she finally ran away from her ex-husband in the middle of the night with “$2,500, a duffel bag, my three babies, and nothing else.”

During the fourth episode, Andrea Kelly looks directly at the camera and says, “Robert, you know what you did. You know the turmoil you brought into my kids’ life. You destroyed Christmases, birthdays, graduations. It’s because of you, Robert, that my children were told they can’t sit at the lunch table, because [their] daddy rapes little girls. You can deny all you want to, and for that, you can go to hell.”