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Andrea Kelly has spoken about her ex-husband’s abuse in the new Lifetime docuseries Surviving R. Kelly. Andrea, 44, details what it was like to be married to the controversial singer and how dangerous he was behind close doors.
“You don’t even believe in your own sense of judgement after a while, and you’re trying to figure out ‘How do I get him back to the good space?’” Andrea says in the Lifetime teaser. “I’ll just take responsibility for it, I’ll just say it’s my fault. I’ll say yes to whatever it is, I’ll apologize, because if I could just get him back to the good guy, the one that I fell in love with, then I’m in a good space.”
Andrea Kelly Claims That Her Ex Regularly Abused Her In Lifetime’s New Docuseries
Andrea married R. Kelly in 1996. She was 22 at the time, and working as one of Kelly’s backup dancers on tour. They had three children together: Joann, born 1998; Jaya, born 2000; and Robert, Jr., born 2002. Andrea filed a restraining order against Kelly in September 2005 after she asked for a divorce and he assaulted her. She legally filed for divorce the following year, and it was finalized in 2009.
Elsewhere during the Surviving R. Kelly interview, Andrea said that the stress caused by R. Kelly’s sexual assault cases and controversial persona nearly caused her to miscarry her son Robert, Jr. “I was under so much stress that when I went to the OBGYN they couldn’t find his heartbeat,” she said. “And I remember getting to the emergency room and I remember coming through the door and they had papers and signing and people were grabbing me and putting stuff in my arm.”
Andrea Reveals That the Stress Her Husband Caused Nearly Resulted In Their Son Robert, Jr. Being Miscarried
Andrea was told that they doctors have to induce labor right away, because they were unsure if the baby was going to make it. “I went through the labor and I just remember falling so in love with little Rob because he came here so strong,” she recalled. “I was in that much stress.” Surviving R. Kelly is not the first time that Andrea has spoken about her ex in public.
Appearing on The View last October, she detailed specific situations in which Kelly physically abused her. She claims that the singer pushed his forearm into her neck at one point, and left her hog-tied on the bed after a particularly nasty argument. Andrea added that while she initially kept quiet about Kelly’s abuse for the sake of their children, she decided to speak out against him for the sake of future young women.
“You cannot not speak when someone’s life and what they’ve been through is parallel to yours,” she explained. “I wanted to bring validity to these women’s stories… So much of it falls on deaf ears and no one believes them… I was like, ‘If no one else is going to speak up for her, if no one else is going to believe her, at least she knows that I do’.”
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R. Kelly’s Ex-Wife Andrea Details Abuse In Docuseries