Another woman recently came forward to air out disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly for alleged abuse.
Tracy Sampson said she met Kelly when she was 16 and interning at Epic Records. She claims the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer sexually abused after meeting in the summer of 1999 when she was a 16-year-old intern at the long-standing label.
Speaking to NBC’s Dateline in her first on-camera interview, Sampson claimed Kelly allegedly tried to kiss her when she was underage and began a sexual relationship with her.
When they first met, Sampson said Kelly asked her, “‘Can I kiss you?’ and I was like, ‘No,'” to which he responded, “‘Well, give me a hug.’ And then, like, when I gave him a hug he just started kissing me.”
“I was in love with him,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to do. Like, I didn’t know if this was normal. I didn’t know if this is how adults acted.”
Sampson, now 36, spoke out a few weeks after the airing of a Lifetime series, “Surviving R. Kelly,” which chronicles a range of allegations against the R&B singer, including sexual, physical and emotional abuse. She said she sued R. Kelly when she turned 18 and ended their relationship, claiming the singer sexually abused her. She said she settled the lawsuit for $250,000 in 2002.
Kelly, 52, has denied all wrongdoing. His attorney, Steven Greenberg, told NBC News that he didn’t represent the artist when Sampson alleges she was abused, but he was adamant that his client has done nothing wrong.
Greenberg said there is no evidence of Kelly having sex with underage girls “because it didn’t happen.”
Asked by Dateline if it is a coincidence “that all these women are coming forward,” Greenberg said, “There’s not ‘all these women.’ There’s a few women who are making these allegations for which there’s no proof.”
“The record companies are abandoning him. Other artists are all of a sudden acting like they’re shocked by these rumors that – that are floating around. He’s having a very difficult time. But he is strong, he’s tough. He wants to put out his music and continue performing for people. And I expect that’s what he’ll be able to do,” Greenberg said.
