‘Surviving R. Kelly Part II’: The Biggest Revelations From Alleged Victim Tiffany Hawkins
The three-night docuseries Surviving R. Kelly Part II: The Reckoning premiered on Lifetime on Jan. 2, 2020. The docuseries chronicles the sex abuse allegations against R&B musician Robert Sylvester Kelly, or R. Kelly, most of which involve minors. R. Kelly has current pending charges, but he and his legal team have denied all and any allegations against him.
On Night 1 of the five-episode series, R. Kelly’s brothers Carey and Bruce Kelly spoke out about their alleged childhood abuse. Kelly’s purported “first victim” (or at least the first to come forward publicly), Tiffany Hawkins, was also interviewed.
Tiffany and her legal team sued Kelly in 1996 and wound up with a $250,000 settlement. But now, she’s speaking out about her accusations against Kelly—namely, that he allegedly sexually assaulted her starting in 1991, when she was just 15 years old.
Hawkins said she met Kelly in Chicago’s Hyde Park
As a child, Hawkins was a talented singer who longed to make a career as a musician. After meeting Kelly in Hyde Park when she was a young teenager, he asked her to come back to his apartment for an audition. She claimed she brought friends along and that Kelly had sex with them that first day.
This arrangement didn’t change, Hawkins alleged, as she got to know R. Kelly more and he began to help her with a potential music career. Hawkins shockingly claimed Kelly even eventually called her his “cable girl,” as she brought her 14-16-year-old friends around for him to sleep with.
Hawkins’ attorney, Ian Alexander, said Kelly even forced Hawkins to watch his sexual acts with others. “He would have sex with multiple friends,” Alexander said, “And she wanted to do whatever she needed to do to be with him. And so, when he insisted on having sex with her, she did.” It was, he said, “an evolution of pedophilia.”
A few months along, Hawkins said Kelly’s attention turned to her. “We went from this more brother-sister type relationship to more of a sexual type relationship. And it was weird for me,” she said on the docuseries.
“It was never something that I wanted to do because I was not sexually attracted to Robert,” said Hawkins. But her longing to sing professionally and her teenage naiveté overwhelmed her. “I was not in love with Robert…It was what I knew I had to do in order to satisfy him and keep myself around.”
The aspiring singer became close with Aaliyah
As their sexual relationship continued, Hawkins became close with Aaliyah, who would eventually marry Kelly in an invalid legal arrangement. “We became really fast friends,” said Hawkins.
She began to sing background vocals for Aaliyah’s album. Kelly produced “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” before marrying Aaliyah when she was just 15.
On Surviving R. Kelly Part II, Hawkins said she was surprisingly relieved about Kelly’s relationship with Aaliyah. “When I found out that Robert and Aaliyah got married, I didn’t care,” she said. “If someone else was having sex with him, that was great, ‘cause that meant I didn’t have to.”
Hawkins claims Kelly made her hide her pregnancy with his baby
According to Hawkins, her relationship with Kelly ended abruptly when she became pregnant with his child. “I wound up going home…because I was pregnant,” she said.
And when she told R. Kelly about the pregnancy, Hawkins said, he was less than supportive. “I called Robert. He was getting ready to go on stage. And he told me, ‘You and me both better know that that’s not my baby,” she said on the docuseries.
Afterward, he stopped taking her calls. Hawkins said she was so devastated by the alleged abuse that she attempted suicide weeks later.
