Now that R. Kelly has been convicted and the New York trial against the disgraced singer is behind him, Azriel Clary has come forward to share her side of the story. The world was first introduced to Clary when she and Kelly’s other girlfriend Joycelyn Savage were photographed at court hearings in support of the singer, and the two women also joined him for his infamous interview with Gayle King.
Two years later, Clary sat down with King once again, but this time, she was not there to sing Kelly’s praises. Instead, she made claims that Kelly was warned by his staff not to spend time with underage girls and states that she lied through her previous interview.
Clary appeared on CBS Mornings with King and was questioned about her relationship with Kelly.
“I was lost, and I felt invisible, and I gave someone that control over me to basically make me do whatever it was that they wanted me to do and act however they wanted me to act,” said Clary. She added that in their first interview, Kelly allegedly coached both herself and Savage “to be angry and upset.”
“So we came in angry. And I was scared because I was like, I don’t want the world to see me this way, you know. I’m loving. I’m caring. I’m compassionate, and no one got to see that side of me,” she claimed. “Before that interview, he had us practicing every single day. If he didn’t like our answer, he would tell us exactly what to say and how to say it. So, any time you mention anything about sexual preference, we already know to say, ‘I’m not here to talk about that,’ because that’s what he told us to say every single time.”
Clary believed that the life she was living with Kelly was “normal,” but once she began to “break out of that” mindset, she said she realized it was “abnormal.”
[via]