Former R. Kelly background singers claims she saw the then 27-year-old R. Kelly having sex with a then- 15-year-old Aaliyah when they were out on tour.
“We were out on the road with Aaliyah. On a tour bus, there really aren’t many confined spaces. When you get on the bus there are bunks and so these bunks have little curtains you can pull at night if you don’t want anybody to see you sleeping,” Jovante Cunningham says in a preview of her interview, premiered on People Magazine on Monday (Dec. 31). “So, it just so happened we were all laying in our bunks and the curtains are open, everybody’s communicating, laughing. When the [room] door flew open on the bus. Robert was having sex with Aaliyah.”
Cunningham was asked to get into detail about what she saw, and she made it clear that they were engaging in sexual activities. “Things that an adult should not be doing with a child,” she replied. “I can’t stress to you how people are still suffering behind things that went on 20 years ago.”
Aaliyah’s mother Diane Haughton has reportedly released a statement in response to R. Kelly’s former backup singer, who claimed she witnessed the then- 15-year-old singer having sex with Kelly in the ’90s on a tour bus.
“The woman and so-called back up singer in the forthcoming ‘Surviving’ documentary that described seeing, meeting, or ever breathing the same air as my daughter, Aaliyah, is lying and is a liar,” Haughton’s statement, which began circulating the Internet on Jan. 2, reads. “My husband and I were always on tour with her and at interviews and every place she went throughout her entire career. Whoever this woman is, I have never seen her before anywhere on planet Earth, until now.”
“These lies and fabrications cannot be tolerated and allowed to be spewed from the forked tongue of saboteurs of Aaliyah’s legacy,” Haughton continues. “Shame on all those involved in this project who thought it kosher to drag Aaliyah’s name into a situation that has nothing to do with her today.”
Lifetime docu-series Surviving R. Kelly features a testimony from Jovante Cunningham, who says she witnessed Robert Kelly engaging in sexual intercourse with the late singer on his tour bus.
Surviving R. Kelly premieres Jan. 3rd.
