R. Kelly accuser says his staff "tried to warn him" about inappropriate behavior: "I know that he knows he's guilty"
One of the women who testified about the abuse she endured while in a relationship with R. Kelly at the singer's racketeering and sex trafficking trial told CBS News on Wednesday that he was warned by staff about his behavior.
"I know that he knows he's guilty," Azriel Clary told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King.
"People told him. People tried to warn him. People tried to help him," she added. "He didn't care [...] He was selfish. He was greedy. He was a pedophile [...] And he never, not once, wanted to get help,"
Clary said assistants would tell Kelly that "these people are minors. You can't be flying these people in. I don't know what you're doing with them, but —"
Kelly, she said, responded: "Mind your business. You're fined or you're fired."
"That's the only options that he would give people that worked for him," she said. "And I feel like it's very disturbing for him to sit and think that he is still innocent when he knows of all the trauma that he's put us through."
Clary, who testified under a pseudonym during the R&B singer's New York trial, identified herself by her real name in an interview with Gayle King in March 2019. At the time, she was living with Kelly and denied any abuse.
But by January 2020, Clary said she had been abused and brainwashed by Kelly and that she had lied to King during the interview.
Clary testified during Kelly's trial that her relationship with Kelly was abusive. Kelly, who she began a relationship with when she was 17, sexually and physically abused her, including coercing her into having an abortion, she said.
A New York jury found Kelly guilty of all charges after he was accused of targeting, grooming and exploiting young women and men "for his own sexual gratification." Kelly has denied any wrongdoing.
Watch more of Gayle King's interview with Azriel Clary on Thursday on "CBS Mornings."
