In the two-episode documentary Karma: A Daughter's Journey, which broadcast today, October 11, Abi, 26, alleges she was assaulted by her father as a youngster and first reported it to her mother Andrea in 2009, when she was ten.

Buku Abi, the daughter of convicted R&B artist R. Kelly, has spoken out publicly for the first time about the alleged abuse she underwent as a kid at the hands of her father.

In the two-episode documentary Karma: A Daughter's Journey, which broadcast today, October 11, Abi, 26, alleges she was assaulted by her father as a youngster and first reported it to her mother Andrea in 2009, when she was ten.

"He was my everything. For a long time, I refused to accept it had actually happened. I didn’t know that even if he was a bad person he would do something to me,” she says in the documentary, the first episode of which is streaming now.

I had no idea that even if he was a nasty person, he would do something to me," she adds in the documentary, the first episode of which is currently streaming.

"I was too scared to tell anyone." "I was too scared to tell my mother."

Though Abi, born Joann Kelly, does not go into detail about the alleged abuse in the first episode, she says she believes jail is a "well-suited place" for Kelly, 57, based on her "personal experience."

"I honestly feel like that one instant entirely just altered my whole life and changed who I was as a person and changed the sparkle I had and the light I used to carry," she recounts." "After telling my mother, I stopped going over there, as did my brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah]. And I still struggle with it a lot."


In the second episode, Buku goes into greater detail about the alleged assault, which she claims occurred when she was 8 or 9.

"I just remember waking up with him touching me," she says, crying. "And I didn't know what to do, so I just kind of laid there, and I pretended to be asleep."

"I honestly feel like that one instant entirely just altered my whole life and changed who I was as a person and changed the sparkle I had and the light I used to carry," she recounts." "After telling my mother, I stopped going over there, as did my brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah]. And I still struggle with it a lot."

Buku claims she eventually informed her mother what happened, and they went to the police and filed a complaint under the name "Jane Doe," but she adds in the video, "They couldn't prosecute him because I waited too long." So, at that time in my life, I felt like I had said something for nothing.

Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, told People, "Mr. Kelly firmly rejects these charges. His ex-wife made the same accusation years before, and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigated and deemed it to be unsubstantiated.... And the 'filmmakers,' whomever they are, did not contact Mr. Kelly or his team to allow him to deny these derogatory allegations."

"I honestly feel like that one instant entirely just altered my whole life and changed who I was as a person and changed the sparkle I had and the light I used to carry," she recounts." "After telling my mother, I stopped going over there, as did my brother [Robert] and sister [Jaah]. And I still struggle with it a lot."

Kelly received a 20-year prison sentence in Chicago in February 2023 for child pornography and enticing children for s*x. The year before, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison on racketeering and s*x trafficking charges in New York. He is now serving 19 years of his two sentences consecutively and will be available for release in 2045.