Parents of Azriel Clary: "We can take responsibility. But to the world, how much responsibility did R. Kelly take?"
Alice and Angelo Clary, the parents of one of R. Kelly's live-in girlfriends, Azriel Clary, tell "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King they think their 21-year-old daughter duped them from the beginning of her relationship with Kelly, whom she met in 2015. In their first interview since the airing of Lifetime's "Surviving R. Kelly" docuseries, Alice and Angelo claim Kelly manipulated Azriel.
"I feel like I failed my daughter because I should have saw different signs," Angelo said in an interview that will air Wednesday. "I should have saw the change in my baby girl instead of the love that we instilled in her, that she was showing us and putting on a charade. So, guess what? We can take responsibility. But to the world, how much responsibility did R. Kelly take?"
Azriel, alongside another live-in girlfriend Joycelyn Savage, 23, told King in an interview last week they are in love with the 52-year-old singer, and that there is nothing inappropriate about their relationship with Kelly. Azriel went on to call her father "a manipulative liar" and claimed her parents "were actually making me, trying to get me to take photos with him, take sexual videos with him," which the Clarys denied.
In February Chicago prosecutors charged Kelly with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Three of the four alleged victims were underage when the suspected crimes happened. Kelly pleaded not guilty. But sources tell CBS News federal and state authorities in at least two states, New York and Illinois, are now investigating a variety of allegations.
"You're 45, and he's 52," King said to Angelo. "When you think about that, does that make you — is it the fact that he's so much older? Or the fact that it's him? Or the fact that he — you don't think he's not treating her well?"
"It's not about that," Angelo said.
"Is it about the age for you?" King asked.
"It's the whole monstrous situation at this point. This [is] a sick situation that nobody — nobody — would ever see — think we would be in because [of] how protective we are of our children," Angelo said.
Kelly told King in an explosive interview all the women accusing him of physical and sexual abuse are lying. He also denied he had a sexual relationship with Clary when she was underage, and posed the question, "What kind of father, what kind of mother, will sell their daughter to a man?" Asked if he was saying the Clary and Savage parents handed their daughters over to him, he said, "Absolutely. Are the cameras still going? Absolutely."
Watch the extended interview with the Clarys on Wednesday, March 13, on "CBS This Morning," which airs 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET/PT.