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Sex, lies and that infamous R. Kelly videotape no longer define Reshona Landfair.
Those shackles, virtually fastened around her neck by the Grammy-winning R&B singer’s abhorrent actions, had bound Landfair for most of her life.
Kelly had begun grooming and sexually abusing her at age 13 — when the star was 30, she claims in a shocking new memoir, “Who Was Watching Shorty: Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse,” out now.
Landfair spent the entirety of her adolescence and early adulthood hiding the fact that she was the 14-year-old girl in a contemptible child pornography video, seen about around the world.
She was the 100-pound minor Kelly plied with Cristal champagne — before disturbingly urinating on her face in full view of the camera, back in the late 1990s.
Landfair — who claims Kelly routinely recorded their sexual encounters as “hardcore porn videos,” with professional lighting kits and multi-camera setups, for his own viewing pleasure — remembers feeling “disgusted” during the revolting deed.
“As disgusting as that one video was, it wasn’t the most disgusting thing [R.Kelly] did to me or required me to film of myself,” she writes. “…I know that other women who were abused by [him] have shared stories about his willingness to use human excrement; my experience was the same.”
Her ordeal worsened when the vile footage leaked in the early 2000s — sparking outrage and an investigation by the authorities, but also an outpouring of support for Kelly from diehard fans who denied his wrongdoing.
And at the center of it all was Landfair, now the unwitting star in bootlegged copies of the vid, which sold on street corners across America. A rising musical prodigy and promising basketball player, she became the butt of crass jokes spewed by prominent comedians and radio shock jocks worldwide.
Worse still, she now shares, Kelly kept her isolated after the tape leaked — and claims he told her parents her loved their daughter, to keep them from participating in the court cases against him.
“[R. Kelly] was on his knees, crying. ‘Man, I’m sorry. It’s just that I love her!,” Landfair writes. “He was begging for my dad to see things his way…[he] made a promise that we wouldn’t have anything to worry about, that he would take care of me and us.”
“I didn’t know what all he and Dad had discussed in the room,” she adds, ‘but I knew what [R. Kelly] said he would say: that we all needed to [do was] fall in line with his plan because he had thought through everything and had our best interests at heart.”
But on August 18, 2022, in front of a packed courtroom at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, based in her hometown of Chicago, Landfair, then 37, boldly chose to no longer be held captive in what she calls R. Kelly’s “prison of lies.”
“That was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Landfair, now 41, exclusively told The Post of testifying anonymously against Kelly, 59, in his 2022 racketeering, sex trafficking and child pornography trial.
The musician had previously been convicted of nine criminal counts, including racketeering and Mann Act violations, in the Eastern District of New York in 2021.
With the help of Landfair, who only took the witness stand in Chicago as “Jane Doe,” the legal proceedings resulted in Kelly’s concurrent 20-year and 30-year prison sentences. Her testimony aided the prosecution in convicting him of sex crimes, including producing child sexual abuse imagery and coercing minors into sex acts.
The “I Believe I Can Fly” singer — born Robert Sylvester Kelly — is currently serving his time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butler, North Carolina.
Representatives for R. Kelly did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment.
A lawyer for the singer did, however say, “Mr. Kelly wishes Ms. Landfair all the best in life. At a young age, Ms. Landfair was unfairly forced into the public eye against her will by people that were intent on destroying the reputation of R. Kelly. She did not deserve that. Mr. Kelly has no negative comments to make about her. He hopes she finds success and peace,” in a recent statement to Rolling Stone.
Now, no longer frettingly hiding behind the Jane Doe moniker, Landfair feels free and has become “more confident and self-assured” in the years since having her day in court — strengths she did not have as she nervously recounted her trauma before a judge, jury and, of course, Kelly.
“That was the first time I had to face my abuser, not under his control,” said Landfair.
Kelly’s “angel”
Landfair was first introduced to Kelly at age 12 by her aunt, singer Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards.
Being his “angel” — a nickname Kelly gave Landfair during the years she describes as being under his rule — meant obeying and satisfying Kelly’s every command, calling him “Daddy” [she now exclusively refers to him as Robert], getting permission to do everyday things like use the phone or even the restroom, and, most importantly, protecting his image at all costs.
Landfair claims their sordid involvement began after Sparkle, who notably collaborated with R. Kelly on the 1998 single “Be Careful,” encouraged the then-preteen to cozy up with Kelly during a studio session.
“…I was at Aunt Sparkle’s apartment when she said, ‘Hey, [Reshona], the next time we’re at the studio, you should ask Robert to be your godfather,’” she writes. “Aunt Sparkle explained that I should sit on his lap and rub his head while I asked him.”
“This instruction seemed sort of weird since I hadn’t sat on his lap before, but I didn’t question it.”
Sparkle, however, denied the allegation in a statement to The Post, saying, in part, “Any suggestion that I groomed, facilitated or enabled harm to my niece is untrue and deeply painful.”
“When I was informed her parents were allowing Reshona to spend unchaperoned time with R. Kelly, I immediately called the Department of Children and Family Services,” she insisted. “When the tape surfaced and the state brought charges against him in 2008, I cooperated fully and testified under oath.”
Sparkle has previously deemed Landfair’s claims against her an “absolute f- -king lie,” on social media.
Still, Landfair maintains that shortly after asking to become Kelly’s goddaughter, their relationship quickly escalated from friendly to flirty.
They first engaged in phone sex, secret calls the middle schooler would have with Kelly in the privacy of her bedroom, unbeknownst to her parents.
“‘Be ready to talk that s—t for Daddy,’” Landfair recalls Kelly instructing at the top of their chats, during which he’d command her to describe what she was wearing and to touch herself inappropriately.
She says Kelly, then a married father of one, swore her to secrecy, insisting that the world “wouldn’t understand” their love, and that they’d both be in trouble if anyone learned of the affair.
Phone sex soon became full-blown intercourse, which often included a third-party — usually one of Landfair’s trusted female schoolmates who, like almost everyone in Chicago, was enamored with Kelly.
In addition to threesomes, Landfair says she was subjected to intense sexual spankings and forced to watch Kelly sexually brutalize other women.
“Whenever I questioned his requests or even hesitated to comply, Robert had a form of correction that he knew would get me back in line,” she writes. “Sometimes I had to watch another person come and pleasure him in the way he had wanted me to. It was horrible to be forced to watch someone else’s naked body do what I refused to.”
For fear of losing her position in Kelly’s life, and under the threat of having to endure another grueling “correction,” Landfair often complied with his demands and fulfilled his seediest desires — like the ill-famed video — without pushing back.
Hidden away
Her relationship with Kelly took form shortly after his illegal marriage to late R&B songstress Aaliyah, when she was just 15. Kelly’s alleged indecent dealings with underage girls became the music industry’s worst kept secret. But, no matter his detractors, his success outshone the scandal. With hits such as “Bump N’ Grind” and “Step In The Name of Love,” music lovers in his hometown of Chicago, and the worldover, often shrugged off murmurs of his misconduct.
Landfair’s parents, too, dismissed the loud whispers of Kelly’s alleged impropriety throughout the ’90s. He’d helped launch Sparkle’s career, gave dad Greg guitarist gigs and had taken Reshona under his wing as a godchild.
But the teen’s family had no clue that she, too, had become entangled in his web of wrongdoing — not until that obscene video was released in 2000.
“I got the chills the first time I’d learned that video went public,” Landfair tells The Post. She was 16 at the time. “I was very scared and ashamed. I didn’t know what to expect.“
“I was still in school, I had friends and family,” she continued. “This secret I’d kept was 1771451534 known to the public, and something I’d have to admit to. It was just devastating.”
“I tried to disappear.”
But she was at the point of no return. During the early aughts, when the vid went viral, there were no holds barred in entertainment media. Professional jokesters, like Dave Chappelle — with his infamous 2003 “Piss On You” sketch in the wake of the footage leak — went unchecked for making light of Landfair’s abuse.
The tape had triggered a barrage of off-color japes and jibes at her expense, as well as an investigation from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services at the behest of her then-estranged Aunt Sparkle.
It also spurred Kelly’s ’02 child pornography trial, which went on for six years until he received a “not guilty” verdict in 2008.
But unbeknownst to the prosecution, and most of the world, Landfair had been secretly living aboard Kelly’s tour bus during the protracted ordeal. She was banned from communicating with relatives or friends, and barred from watching television or surfing the internet.
But she acquiesced to the limitations in deference to “Daddy.”
In fact, she didn’t even testify in the trial. Instead, by then 24, she’d hoped that the outcome of the high-profile case would set her and Kelly — then a divorcee — free to be a front-facing couple.
“I’m thinking, ‘Okay, the cat’s out of the bag. Things are going to be good between us. We don’t have to live in secrecy,” Landfair remembered of the thoughts she kept while in total isolation. “I used [that hope] as motivation. So that I wouldn’t feel [psychologically] imprisoned.”
But her dreams of being Kelly’s official one and only were soon dashed after the court case ended.
“Once the trial was complete, Robert was done with me,” she said. “He no longer needed me to lie or keep his secrets.”
Kelly refused to allow Landfair to accompany him on tour in Africa and he continued to see other women, publicly, while Landfair remained in the shadows. The shunning caused her to become defiant.
“There was a lot of me acting out of character, going against his rules, not following along with his protocol,” said Landfair, adding that her sudden rebelliousness ultimately “led to my freedom.”
She and Kelly officially parted ways in 2009.
But being outside of the “Bad Man” singer’s circle, after more than a decade, was disorienting.
“I was like a fish out of water. I had to reclaim myself from the age of 13-years-old through adulthood,” said Landfair, who transitioned out of traditional school into homeschooling after the video went viral.
Because her name wasn’t redacted in the ’02 court documents, she struggled to land jobs and found it virtually impossible to date.
“I lacked educationally and socially. I’d turned on all of my family members [during my relationship with Robert],” she said. “So repairing those relationships and figuring out how to become a woman was a challenge.”
Standing up to her abuser
In 2019, Lifetime’s damning “Surviving R. Kelly” miniseries was released, featuring a host of women — including underage girls he met after being acquitted in ‘08 — who accused the fallen star of abuse and sexual misconduct.
Landfair, then in her 30s and a new mother of one, watched it and made the decision to cooperate with federal prosecutors in the 2022 child pornography case against Kelly.
“The Surviving R. Kelly documentary was a turning point for me,” said Landfair. “I looked at those traumas — I thought those kind of things only happened to me. But once I was exposed to how many people he was able to hurt, I felt responsible.”
Bringing him to justice was a must.
“When I looked into his eyes, I saw myself as a 14-year-old girl and I felt my spirit as a woman,” she said of coming face-to-face with Kelly, who was taken into federal custody in 2023.
His conviction notwithstanding, the jailed artist continues to boast a strong global fanbase — resulting in vicious attacks on Landfair since her day in court.
“Not everyone is going to love the story,” she said of her detractors — many who label her a “liar” and call the book a “money grab.”
“If it was your family member that R. Kelly decided to have similar interactions with, I don’t think you’d feel the same,” she said.
But rather than be deterred by the flak, Landfair — now a school health counselor and the founder of “Project Refine,” a mentoring program for teens and single moms — uses it to fuel her mission of change.
“I want to instill awareness and give a voice to people who might go through similar things,” she said. “My trauma came through Robert. However, [anyone] who holds power over you, in general, is where these kind of things get swept under the rug.”
“Speak up. You have a voice. It’s never too late to change your mind or turn things around,” added Landfair. “I really want [readers] to understand the power in that.”
