R. Kelly’s Ex-Wife Breaks Silence Following Guilty Verdict:I Sit In A Very Difficult Place

Yahoo News/September 29, 2021

By Shannon Dawson

On Sept. 27, the jury in R. Kelly’s contentious sex trafficking case finally delivered a long-awaited guilty verdict to the singer.

While the milestone victory served as a sigh of relief for some of his victims, Kelly’s ex-wife Andrea “Drea” Kelly shared in an interview with Good Morning Britain that she had mixed emotions about the news.

“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… I feel that my heart is in two places,” Drea, who shares three children with the disgraced singer, explained.

“At the end of the day, you cannot walk away from your bloodline,” Drea added. “I have the ability to separate and distance myself from it, but his blood runs through my children’s veins and it’s part of their DNA and they can’t escape it even if they wanted to. So it’s very difficult for me to sit in that position.”

Drea, a former choreographer, was married to Kelly for 13 years. The two were married in 1996 and their divorce was officially finalized in 2009 Page Six reported.

The mother of three declined to comment on her children’s reaction to their father’s verdict, but she explained to viewers:

Drea has previously spoken out about the abuse she endured at the hands of the 54-year-old artist during their tumultuous marriage. In an interview with The View in 2018, she revealed a harrowing story of when Kelly slammed his forearm into her neck, preventing her from breathing.

“I said, ‘Robert, you’re going to kill me. I can’t breathe,'” Drea recalled of the frightening experience. “I just thought, ‘Oh, my God. I’m going to die in the back of this Hummer.'”

In another alleged incident, she accused the singer of hogtying her to the bed for hours, adding that once she went public with her abuse stories, people began to “victim shame” her.

Social media critics have slammed the survivor for allegedly being complacent throughout the years of Kelly’s sexual abuse cases. Some claimed that she could have blown the whistle on his criminal acts.

One Twitter user wrote in response to the interview:

“I wonder if Andrea Kelly will change her last name now,” wrote another social media goer.

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