‘I was empty’: R. Kelly victim from 2002 tape breaks silence ahead of new memoir

Reshona Landfair, known publicly as “Jane Doe,” opened up with CBS’s Jericka Duncan about her years of abuse and grooming at the hands of the disgraced R&B singer.

The woman who R. Kelly filmed himself abusing when she was a child in 2002 is breaking her silence.

Reshona Landfair, known publicly as “Jane Doe” in court filings against the disgraced R&B singer, is preparing to release her memoir, “Who’s Watching Shorty?” In an interview with CBS’s Jericka Duncan, Landfair opens up about how her relationship with Kelly, whose government name is Robert Kelly, turned into years of abuse and grooming— and how she was mocked as a victim and not protected.

In her memoir, Landfair admits Kelly informed her that one of the tapes he recorded of them was beginning to be sold across the city of Chicago and subsequently across the country.

“I was empty,” she recalls of hearing Kelly’s admission. “I was very hollow inside. I was very confused … didn’t know what to expect. And I was embarrassed.”

The initial footage exploded in circulation and became a klaxon for prosecutors to charge Kelly with 21 counts of child pornography in 2002. The first trial, after numerous delays, began in 2008, and Kelly was acquitted. Prosecutors believed Landfair’s testimony would have altered the outcome of that trial.

“That’s one of my biggest regrets, not telling the truth,” Landfair tells Duncan. “But again, when I have been trained and groomed since I was age 13, I started believing the lies that I was telling. It was very foggy and unclear on what I really felt versus what was right or what was wrong. And even in moments where I despised Robert, I still lied for him.”

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Landfair admits that public reaction to the tape ridiculed her, from an episode of “The Boondocks” to comedians like Dave Chappelle who parodied Kelly with songs like “Piss On You.”

“I definitely think things could have been handled differently. I’m happy I wasn’t there to witness everyone watching that,” she said of the recording being played before a jury. “I was not made to be a victim. I was a mockery. And that was very difficult to digest. It was very disheartening to know that my body was just being displayed and tossed around. When I look back on, I wish things could have been done differently, but those are all things I’ve had to internalize.”

Ultimately, Kelly was charged again for sex crimes in the light of the “Surviving R. Kelly” documentary, subsequent boycotts and discoveries from women who came forward and said Kelly abused them over a multi-year period. In a 202 federal trial, Kelly was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 30 years in prison. In the 2022 state trial in Illinois, he was found guilty on three of the thirteen counts against him and sentenced to 20 years, to run concurrently with his 30-year federal sentence.

Landfair’s memoir, “Who’s Watching Shorty?: Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse,” hits bookshelves on Tuesday (Feb. 3).