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R. Kelly Is the Subject of More Abuse Allegations

In a new 'Rolling Stone' article, Kelly's former girlfriend Kitti Jones alleges that the singer was sexually and emotionally abusive, which he refutes.

On Monday, Rolling Stone published an interview with a young woman who'd previously spoken to Buzzfeed News, alleging that R. Kelly abused her over a two-year period. Kitti Jones, a former radio DJ on local Dallas, Texas station 97.9 The Beat, told Rolling Stone that she met Kelly at a concert afterparty in 2011, and later embarked on a relationship with the singer, quitting her job and moving to his home in Chicago. During that relationship, which took place between 2011 and 2013, she claims that Kelly physically beat her, coerced her sexually and controlled many aspects of her life.

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She also told Rolling Stone that the women in relationships with Kelly are allegedly discouraged from getting to know one another with the threat of physical violence, saying "If you disclose your relationship with him [to another woman] – how long you've known him or whatever – you can get beat." Jones alleges sexual abuse, specifically detailing experiences of being coerced into sex with other women, which she told Rolling Stone that Kelly would watch. "You just become numb to what's happening. It's so traumatic the things that he makes you do to other people and to him," she stated.

Her aims in making these claims publicly are, clearly, to get people to listen to the now mounting number of women who have alleged abuse against Kelly. She says:

I want them to not be so dismissive towards the women that are speaking out. We're not just rolling over out of bed and saying, 'Hmm, let me just make up a story about R. Kelly today. Let me make it sound similar to something that he's already been accused of and put my own remix to it just [because] I want some attention.' [Anyone who has spoken out] has gotten annihilated in the press [and] from fans.

In response to the Jones' accusations and the Rolling Stone article, Kelly's lawyers have stated:

Mr Kelly is aware of the repeated and now evolving claims of [Ms Jones]. It is unfortunate that Ms Jones, after public statements to the contrary, is now attempting to portray a relationship history with Mr Kelly as anything other than consensual involvement between two adults. As stated previously, Mr Kelly does not control the decision-making or force the actions of any other human being, including Ms Jones, by her own admission. Any claim of wrongdoing of any kind or of mistreatment of any woman by him is false, ill-motived and defamatory.

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