K. Michelle Said ‘Everybody Is Going to Jail’ if She Speaks About Relationship With R. Kelly
Singer K. Michelle has long described R. Kelly as her mentor, but she recently confirmed that she was in love with him. In the past, K. Michelle said that the allegations against Kelly did not surprise her. Now, she said that if she opened up about all her experiences with him, some people would serve prison time.
K. Michelle opened up about her relationship with R. Kelly
K. Michelle’s music career began in 2009, when she signed to a record label. It was the same label as Kelly, and she quickly began to see him as a mentor.
“If it wasn’t for Robert Kelly, I would not know the business,” she said on The Jason Lee Show (via Complex). “I would not understand the skills of songwriting.”
She also confirmed that their relationship was more than just a mentor-mentee dynamic.
“I was in love with him,” she said.
Kelly has faced multiple allegations of sexual abuse over the years. K. Michelle said she thinks that more people than just Kelly shoulder responsibility for his crimes.
“I think mothers and people should be held accountable,” she said. “Should Sparkle go to prison? Absolutely.”
Sparkle is an R&B singer who signed to Kelly’s label. Her niece, Reshona Landfair, alleges that Kelly abused her throughout her childhood. K. Michelle claimed that many people knew about Kelly’s crimes and failed to do anything about them.
“If I talk, everybody is going to jail,” she said.
K. Michelle previously said the allegations about R. Kelly didn’t surprise her
While K. Michelle said she loved Kelly, the allegations against him did not surprise her.
“I’m not surprised by them, I’m actually going to be speaking more about it because I do feel like it’s my obligation as a woman to tell the truth and to do right by other females that are in the business and all these young women who don’t have a voice,” she told Billboard in 2017. “So it’s been something that’s been toying and been really stressing me and I’ve been going back and forth with how to speak about it and how to do right for those girls and read some comments about one of the accusers.”
She said that seeing people doubt Kelly’s accusers hurt her. Still, she hesitated to say that she fully believed his accusers and seemed hesitant to condemn Kelly.
“I can’t speak on it,” she said. “I do believe that in every piece of the story there’s something that is true and I’ve learned so much from my mentor and it’s just the right time and place to say things, to do it properly so that the people you’re trying to help are actually helped instead of taunted so I’ll be speaking more about it but I’ll be doing it in the right way.”
Kelly is currently serving out a 30-year prison sentence.
She spoke about meeting him for the first time
K. Michelle met Kelly shortly after signing to her label. They thought the two artists made similar music.
“I had looked up to him for years, and I really wanted to be able to sing different topics,” she told The Urban Daily in 2011. “And my label signed me as a female R.Kelly, because the topic I came in singing about was so off the wall. So they were like, ‘Okay. Now you can meet your idol. And when you go in here, if he doesn’t like you, don’t get your feelings hurt.’”
She admitted that she was very nervous before their meeting.
“I was shaking,” she recalled. “But he was so … he was just cool. The first thing he asked me when he saw me was, ‘Are you a stripper?’”
How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
