R. Kelly’s Ex-Wife Drea Kelly Says Her ‘Heart Breaks As A Mother’ Over Disgraced Singer’s Guilty Verdict: This Is Now My Children’s Legacy

September 28, 2021 by Nick Fenley in Music with 0 Comments

R. Kelly’s Ex-Wife Drea Kelly Says Her ‘Heart Breaks As A Mother’ Over Disgraced Singer’s Guilty Verdict: This Is Now My Children’s Legacy

As R. Kelly faces accountability in the courtroom, Drea Kelly is opening up about her thoughts on his recent guilty verdict.

As previously reported, R. Kelly was found guilty on all counts as his six-week-long sex trafficking trial came to a close yesterday (Monday, Sept. 27th). Now, the disgraced singer’s ex-wife–Drea Kelly–is speaking on her reaction to R. Kelly being found guilty. The pair got married in 1996, and Drea Kelly filed for divorce in 2006. The matter was finalized three years later, and they share three adult children together.

Regarding the guilty verdict against R. Kelly, Drea Kelly said:

“I sit in a very difficult place because, unlike the rest of his victims, I also share children with him. I was married to him. So I wear two hats–I wear the hat of a survivor and an advocate, but I also wear the hat of a mother and an ex-wife. So it’s very difficult for me. I feel that my heart is in two places.”

She continued:

“My heart definitely goes out to the survivors and the courage that it takes to even come forward and tell the story, but my heart breaks as a mother because this is now the legacy that my children will have to deal with and their children’s children. At the end of the day, you cannot walk away from your bloodline. I have the ability to separate and kind of distance myself from it, but his blood runs through my children’s veins–it’s a part of their DNA. They can’t escape it even if they wanted to. So it’s very difficult for me to sit in that position.”

Drea Kelly then addressed how her own experiences with R. Kelly were “parallel” to his other victims’ accounts:

“It’s a life of constant fear… I can only say that my journey and what I went through, what I have heard, speaks very true to my life. It is parallel to my life and there’s no way for anybody else to know it, because I haven’t shared it with anyone, unless they’ve been through it themselves. It’s constant fear, the intimidation, never knowing which version of him you’re going to get–it is very much Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

She then shared her perspective on on whether or not the trend of victim blaming is beginning to change:

“I think that it’s slowly changing as women’s voices are being heard, but I also think that victim shaming and victim blaming is kind of supported and tucked away in our society. I often say, as little girls when we grow up on the play yard and a little boy pushes you down or he pulls your hair, you go to tell your teacher and what’s the one thing we try to teach little girls? ‘Oh, he’s doing it because he likes you.’ So we’re taught at a very young age as women to believe that love from men comes with violence.”

Drea Kelly continued:

“Also, when you look at our society, pedophilia is tucked into our everyday lives. We have Halloween coming up in October, which is also domestic violence awareness month. Why are we selling naughty schoolgirl costumes? So there’s a lot that we do in this now-called rape culture in society where women are really put in a position to not be protected at all.”