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Asante McGee is one of the many women who have accused R. Kelly of sexual abuse. McGee, 38, has appeared on the documentary series Surviving R. Kelly, where she claims that she was involved with the singer for two years and that he groomed and controlled every aspect of her life during that time.
McGee has said that Kelly forced her into committing sexual acts with other women and was verbally abusive towards her. She also said that he kept her from seeing her three children on a regular basis. Read on to learn more about McGee and her time with Kelly.
1. McGee Said That She Was a ‘Super-Fan’ When She Met R. Kelly During His 2013 Concert Tour
McGee was a massive fan of R. Kelly’s music prior to meeting him, and she attended every Kelly concert in the southern Bible Belt. She told Teen Vogue that she finally got to meet the singer at a promo show for his upcoming Black Panties tour in September 2013. Kelly reached out to her through a member of his entourage, and the pair reconnected at various shows throughout the year.
McGee says their relationship turned serious at a 2014 Valentine’s Day show, where Kelly welcomed her back to his room and they engaged in hours of “groupie sex.” McGee assumed the encounter was a one-night stand, recalling how Kelly give her a $1,200 Louis Vuitton bag as a parting gift the next morning. As a result, she was both surprised and flattered with Kelly continued to reach out to her.
“I knew about the Aaliyah [marriage] which I thought was just a rumor,” McGee said. “As far as the sex tape, I never believed it was him. I never saw the tape; I just thought it was somebody else. I just didn’t believe it. I was a diehard fan. As far as the cases that were settled, I never followed him to that [extent]. I learned about settlements more so after I came out [with my story]. Maybe if I had [known], it would’ve set off an alarm.”
2. She Says That She Had to Follow Strict Rules During the 2 Years She Was With Kelly
McGee recalls having to follow an incredibly strict set of rules whenever she was with R. Kelly. “I took him very seriously. When he’s joking you know he’s joking. He wasn’t playing,” she explained. “When he said ‘every time a king enters the room, you stand up’ — you stand up. I don’t care if he goes back and forth ten times, you better stand up and kiss him each time he comes in and out that room.”
McGee also spoke about the home that Kelly has in Atlanta, which came with even more strict rules as to what she and the rest of the women who stayed there could do. “If we wanted to go in the hallway, we knock on the wall and wait for permission. If I wanted to go to the kitchen, I gotta knock on the wall and wait for permission or wait for someone to say come in,” she said. “This one time, I knocked before going into a room and nobody answered so I thought nobody was home and walked in and [Kelly] was in a corner with [a woman]. From then on, if I wanted to leave my room, I had to text him for permission. Every day he made up a new rule.”
The house rules even extended to food. “You only get to eat when he eats,” McGee revealed. She says she once forced to stuff snacks in a Victoria’s Secret bag at a gas station because she “refused to starve again.”
3. She Claims That Kelly Forced Her to Participate In Threesomes With Other Women
In addition to her controlled lifestyle, McGee told Teen Vogue that Kelly would regularly force her to participate in threesomes and group sex with other women. The first time this occured, was during the Buffet Tour in April 2016.
“He made a phone call, telling someone to ‘come here.’ I hear an internal knock, meaning somebody was on the bus the whole time,” McGee recalled. “She comes through [the door] butt-naked and he says ‘B*tch, get on your knees.’ She gets on all fours.. He says ‘this is the girl I wanted to introduce you to, the one I made sit in the sprinter in Chicago.’”
McGee detailed the events thereafter, saying that Kelly instructed the woman to perform oral sex on both of them. McGee says that while she did not want it, the singer insisted, and went as far as to record the encounter on his iPhone. “I trained her,” Kelly allegedly said. “[She] is my trainer. She gonna train you to please me.”
“I thought I was being punked,” McGee said. “I just froze when I saw the light from the camera. At one point, he raised the [curtains] on the bus, he said ‘oh yeah, this is good, I want everybody to see.’ Again, I froze because we were parked in front of a casino.”
4. She Tolerated Kelly’s Abuse Because She Felt That He ‘Loved’ & ‘Cared’ for Her
Despite the insistence that she participate in group sex against her will, McGee chose to stay with Kelly for roughly two years. Her explanation as to why was that the singer made her feel special. “He seemed like he trusted me more and I finally felt like I was a part of something, a part of him, like he did really care for me and love me,” she explained.
Whenever she wouldn’t return his calls, McGee says that Kelly guilt-tripped her with a text about how much she meant to him. “See you telling me you don’t care about anybody else we have got to get that type of thinking out of your mind you did good the last time you were with me,” he texted. “I am a very busy man I respond to you when I can and when I see fit and you just have to trust that I have people I care about you met one of them so you have to care about her too because she already knows to care about you because of me.”
McGee eventually got away from Kelly, and flew to Dallas to stay with a friend for a week before returning to her home in Atlanta. She has not made contact with him since June 2016.
5. She Was the First Woman to Speak About Kelly’s Abuse to the Media
McGee claims that fans of R. Kelly have criticized her for attacking his reputation. “People [on social media] say I’m lying, I’m mad because he left me. I’m too old,” she said. “[Or] I’m not his type.” She went on to say that regardless of what fans think of her, she sees it as her duty to protect future young women from making the same mistakes that she did.
“I feel proud that I’m coming out. I’m disappointed, but I can’t be mad about the backlash I get because I once was that girl,” McGee admitted. “People don’t realize the process and they think I’m just coming out. I was the first person [who had lived as part of Kelly’s alleged harem] to speak [to a reporter] on the record. When I left, my goal was to get the girls home to their parents. I never intended for it to go where it is.”
“R. Kelly needs to be stopped,” she added. “He is ruining young girl’s lives. He’s ruining women period. These young girls don’t deserve that.”
