Surviving R. Kelly: An Accuser's Daughter Speaks Out (Pt. 2)

The lifetime docuseries Surviving R Kelly has created an international uproar over the R and B singers alleged abuse and sexual misconduct with Myers. Lisa Van Allen, one of Kelly's accusers, was only seventeen when she started dating the thirty one year old star. On part one of our special Red Table Talk Surviving R Kelly The Aftermath, Lisa described how she fell under a spell. He's a master manipulator. He knew my whole background. He knew that I was in

foster care. He knew that I was adopted, like I may have been tricked here. After ten years with R. Kelly, Lisa revealed her breaking point. He specifically kept telling me to buy my daughter dresses, and I'm looking like, why does he care? Just my instincts was like the say, I'm not feeling it. Van Allen's story is not unique. Kelly has been accused of isolating young girls from their families by praying on their hopes and dreams and learning

them with false promises. So I know, Lisa, you have your sixteen year old daughter here and she hasn't heard the entire story of what happened to you until she watched the Yeah, I watched it with her. Are you doing? I didn't want anyone else to talk to her about it, so I felt like me and her needed to watch it together. Goodness, look at this beauty. How are you? You? Looking like your mama? Right? Thank you? Wow, it's so

nice to have you here. So let me ask you, how was it two sit with your mom and hear her story. It was hard and it hurt me because nobody will hear that out there. You cry, It's okay, it's okay, come close y. Yeah. But yeah, it's changed my perspective on a lot of stuff because get it out. I know what you need to do because people are

really gmental nowadays, and it's so absolutely. You know, when you hear someone's story and it's like you don't know, you know, like anyone could be going through anything, and it'll it'll know you she's doing. It'll make you realize like that's how they that's why they act the way they act, and this is why they're like this, this is why they have angry issues and stuff. And I used to always question that about my mom, like why she's so overprotective and and I understand now that it's

scary out there, like people are crazy. Has anyone ever come up to you at school like saying anything about this? On social media? Is yeah, yeah, somebody DM me earlier today it was like, not to be rude, but does r Kelly seeing you guys money, Like, why would you say that for what? So I just blocked the person. That can be so hard. I know how it feels to to have people talking negatively about you on the internet or your family and you're just seeing it and

you're like, what what do I do? And it makes you feel kind of powerless in a way. Yeah, they'll just make up anything and just say it's just so you can either respond or just so you can get mad or so you feelings will be hurt. Do you think that seeing that change your perspective on men? Do you feel afraid to date? Are afraid to have experiences

with males? After? I'm just more cautious, just vigilant. It's like I'm not even interested in like you know, like I'm not in a rush because a lot of people nowadays, like at my school and stuff, they're like, oh, I want boyfriend, boyfriend me please, And I'm like, no, okay. When you watch something like this, in what ways are

you more vigilant? Did you get like certain signs you would look out for, Like how guys using the telephone for control, Like you can't post this thing texting you five hundred times a day and if you don't calling that definitely a form of control, you're gonna you're gonna call me back. Yeah, he just had to this situation about that and cut that really sure? Oh really? He was telling me that he was overpowered, like she'd mocked space. Just keep when you're ignoring me back to back? What

f wrong with you? Answer back? And she said, oh no, I blocked his number. He damned me on Instagram and I was like, I just need space right now and then the next day texting me, texting me call Call, Call Call. I saw it as a red flag from her experience, and then when he started getting aggressive and was like, why are you ignoring me, I'm like bye. When Willow and I were watching it together, we had some real teachable moments, you know, just like you said.

I definitely realized because my mom was super she still is protective, and when I was younger, it was such a mystery to me. It was like, what is what is the big bad? Like let me know, Like I want to know what it is. You don't want to know what it is, like you really don't. There have been so many times I've had to have very real old conversations with Willow in regards to I don't care if you look at this person as like your older brother and you trust them, you're not to be alone anywhere.

And we've had some very hard for me not understanding and being like why it doesn't matter her and me having to tell her it's not you, I don't trust. Here's the thing about girls, when they get to those ages of seventeen eighteen years old, you can you think you've grown right, and as a parent, you only have but so much control because I'm gonna tell you you're on my ass. You're like, you better be in his house, whether I mean you will on me. And I'm like, I'm gonna find a way to lie to her. I'm

gonna find a way to manipulate her. Oh, I'm staying at my girlfriend's house while I'm on these streets doing whatever the hell. I would be as real. I'd be like, yam, hold up, I got a dream. Now you're not gonna get in the way of that. Like this man is saying he might give me an opportunity. You're not thinking about anything else, and I would have been able to manipulate and work my way around you. Believe that any

one of us could have been as real exactly. There's a brilliant psychologist who appeared on Surviving r Kelly, doctor Candice nor Cott. It takes about seven tries for a girl to successfully leave her abuser for good. That statistic tells us how difficult it is often to pull away from these relationships. Thank you for being here. Absolutely, yeah. I want to ask you to help us understand the invisible psychological chains that are created. Um. It's specifically on

an impressionable. Mind, ye, mind, because a lot of the women left and came back and just trying to help us understand why that happened, because in my mind, I'm like, okay, once you you're gone, you're done, be done with that. You know, we see women, but it began the girl children and as children, and it's a slow, slow process. And in the human trafficking field, they're starting to use the term identity distortion. I might call you a different name and say this is the name I'm going to use,

and so now you're not really who you were. Then I'm going to ask you to do different things that you normally wouldn't do, and so then you can just put on that like, oh well, this is my new identity. And so when you start to then shift and get programmed into that new person, how do you go back from that? You've put in so much, you've done so much. How can I come back right? How can I come back from this? Will accept me after all everything I've done.

That's very interesting because when I look at Dominique, that would be a prime example. It wasn't powerful, but the idea that her hair had been shaved tatted us. But did you guys not realize. When TMZ was interviewing the Savages daughter, nobody realized that was a girl with her. They kept saying, Oh, she's by herself, she's out with friends. No, it was still a controlling situation because he sent another one of his girls with her, So if she did try to get away, the other want to get you

get what I mean? Like nobody like to face each other like right, everyone thought that that was a guy. Though that's what I'm changed her identity everything, and oftentimes that's what happens. Right. Let me tattoo you, let me brand you, or let me just make you different. With them, the person you worse, you can't go back. We had like a really big argument one time, me and Rob

we were talking about breaking up everything. And it only was an argument because I had got drunk that night and I wasn't supposed to because I didn't speak up much. But I got drunk that night. The next day I was afraid I didn't know what was going to happen. He calls me down. He plays a song called I Don't Mean It that he had just wrote. So he would do things like that, write songs for you Get what I mean? Like and you're thinking, oh, this is great.

You don't forgot. Would he just threw water in your face and said you're out of here? And you know what I mean? But then he comes and does something like that, and then you're kind of like, yeah, exactly, that's exactly, and that's the type of things I know he did he would do. Women don't necessarily want the relationship to stop. They just want the abuse to stop. I want to be with this person that was vulnerable with me, that shared that love with me. I just

want him to be nice. I can't an abuse to stop, and so they'll stay because they're just hoping, and then they get those glimpses like you described. Would you say that in a lot of these situations that if the abuse goes unchecked, it will progress. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean those even calling somebody out of their name, that's a test. Right. Let me see how she's going to react to that, right, let me say okay that she

didn't like that. Let me pull back and just you know, get her there and then I can use it more often. That is so interesting, And you don't know what love is when you're younger. You don't know how it's supposed to look if you've never had it, if you have an abuse experience, and then especially if you're a star, right and you're inviting somebody into your world, this is how it is, right right, And me seventeen dating a thirty one year old, like, how would I know what

dating a man would be like at seventeen? And he's like, let me tell you so, yeah, and that's what's happening. And that's how I would be thinking that that in my head and he, you know, all I could say to myself is, well, he's a grown man. He would

know better than I would, you know what I mean. Now, that's an interesting point that that you both just brought up, just the idea that you're young, you don't know what love is supposed to look like, and a lot of us haven't seen very good examples of it in the first place, you know. But but I think about just thinking, I'm listening to you, and I'm just thinking about myself, because I did have a perfectly beautiful example in front

of me that I lived with every day. But somehow I got my head that being beat was a sign of love and the amount of love that he had for me, Like he wouldn't bother to beat me if he didn't love me, Like, I don't know how how I ever got that concept in my head? What do you think, Dr rcutt? Could we get a quick therapy session for Gammy? Everything? That the whole thing? And I'm glad you brought that up, because one person's experience is

not everybody's. Right. I have a great relationship with my father, but how did this happen? Right? I had a great role model with a male role model in my house. And yet and still um and because we're not immune, we know, you know, there but for the grace of God go I and we have there's something called um just world fallacy where and the one side of it is good things happen to good people. But put that on its head, Right, if something bad happens to you,

what did you do? That's her fault? Right, and so and so we have to be careful, right. I feel like that's what a lot of people like, like the negative comments that I'm seeing about the docuseries, it's always kind of that mindset of like, oh, if something that bad happened, then she must have done something to make that come upon her, Like no one in their head is like like I'm gonna get Like no one's thinking they're gonna get abused. Was walking through that door exactly, Lisa.

Let me ask you, did you feel like someone was ever gonna come and save you? Or do you feel like everyone just let you down? Were you waiting for that? One of the major questions I had when I was a child. I know, I used to always say why didn't they want me? My parents that? Yeah, yeah, that makes you feel like you're not worth you know, And

I talked to him about that. Do you feel like at times he feeled that void for you made you feel really worthy and feeling like you weren't worthy and you were unwanted that I have got this guy who wants me. It was misguided, but you know I thought, yeah, you know what I mean, But that's what it was. Yeah, I did, you know, because I didn't know to not have any mail role models. Yeah, you know, you just how would you know what the love of a man is supposed to be like? You know? So you know

I was really pushing for it. I wanted it, you know. So yeah, and I think that's something that is at one point that I that I did miss in my thinking of this and how naive we can be as young women and now you've got an adult who's going to groom groom your understanding of love from your professional no point of view. Do you feel as though that people who are abused abused. There are a large majority of people that have experiences of sexual abuse that do

not go on to abuse others. Right, I'd be one, But there are some that do. The idea of power and control getting twisted up with sex for children, and so a way that that can happen is it's not uncommon for a child to be told that the child

seduced the adult. Um, it's not uncommon for the child to be told, well, you know you liked it because of the child had an orgasm, which is an involuntary physical response with so especially with boys, right, And so then then it becomes well, if this is how sex is as an adult, I want to be the other guy.

I want to be the other person, right, And so I'm not speaking for everyone's experience, but that's certain one one path certainly one pathway because I have to be honest and not to justify anything that has happened, but the fact that he had experienced sexual abuse from a family member and really shed light on possibly how something

like this could manifest and happened. And I do believe that as a community, these conversations are so important to have just to make it okay to just talk, because I feel like so many people are suffering in silence and are suffering manifests that in the black community, where people don't want to seek professional help. Oh yeah, because if you go to see a psychologist, then you're crazy. We all made a lot of really great points, and also it's really important to acknowledge that we use the

term adultification right. What we do with girls is that when they start developing, we treat them as if they're adults. And when you add race on top of that, what we know is that we see adolescence and children as less innocent Black adolescence for boys it starts at ten, but for black girls it starts at five. Then their white counterparts. And so when you're thinking about people saying, well, you know, I thought, well, they're grown, so they know

what they're doing. You know, they're in the studio. You know she's standing there seeming like she likes it. We as a society are acting like these girls are willing, right, and we have to own that. We have to recognize how we're complicit, right, And it's that because if just because we're black women at this table doesn't mean that that doesn't seep into our psyches and the way. So we have to we really have to keep talking about it.

I see how that happened with Aaliyah exactly. You know, even I remember you would hear whispers and stuff, but you know, you let you go. Oh, you know, she's making a hit songs, she must be Okay, just explain to me what that is. Like, I'm trying to understand why is that? Have you figured that out? The adult like at five? Just seeing them as more responsible, less innocent,

more responsible for themselves than their white counterparts. So overall black women have seen is more responsible and less innocent. And you see that with um judge is not using their discretion when they're sentencing. You see that with police officer resource officers and schools disciplining black girls, and you just see it. You know, I think the answer isn't simple, but it is historic. I feel it's systematic as well, like systematic and historic, like like that mixture of sexism

and racism, like combining and becoming this monster. That's just like that's becoming dehumanizing. And that's and that's how you can go for years and see black girls getting abused and see black girls being victimized and not really do anything about it or say like, oh, that's terrible, right, it's because you've deemed them now as less than I never thought about it like that. I want to thank you. I want to thank both of you for coming, and

I thank you for listening. And let me ask you, what is something that you want people to know about your mother? She's not who they think she is. She's a helper, she's a mom, she's a lot of stuff. And people just aggravating what they say and they don't know anything, like oh she's a gold digger, Oh what money do we have? Like it's very difficult to heal in the spotlight and in front of people. And that's why you know, um, you know, every last one of

you that that had the just the courage. It taught me so much. It made me have to look at myself. Willow and I had some real conversations. My mother and I had some real conversations. Everybody's having real conversations because of the courage that you guys have had, you know, so it's important because I do believe culturally in our community, we got some things to handle, all right, There's so much more to talk about, so much. Thank you, thank you. We could do it, like I was, like, we can

do five more. Hey, R T T family, Join our Red Table Talk group on Facebook and become part of the conversation. To join the Red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation. Follow us at Facebook dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.