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 The now 39-year-old woman, who
identified herself as Stephanie, told a Brooklyn
jury she found it "humiliating" to have sex with
Kelly during their six-month relationship.
She also said she let Kelly videotape their
having intercourse, but only because she thought
she had no choice.
"He was one of two ways: nice and charming,
jovial. Or he was controlling, intimidating, he
could put the fear of God in me," Stephanie
said. "He humiliated me, he degraded me, he
scared me."
Stephanie testified on the seventh day of the
trial of the 54-year-old Kelly, who is perhaps
best known for the Grammy-winning 1996 song "I
Believe I Can Fly."
Kelly has pleaded not guilty to charges that he
ran a decades-long racketeering scheme in which
he abused six women and girls, including the
late singer Aaliyah.
Many accusations of sex-related misconduct were
discussed in the 2019 Lifetime documentary
"Surviving R. Kelly."
Several witnesses have testified that Kelly
demanded strict obedience from those around him,
with Stephanie and other accusers saying he
required that they call him 'Daddy.'
Stephanie said she was first noticed at a
McDonald's in Chicago in 1998, when a member of
Kelly's entourage gave her the singer's phone
number and asked her to call.
She didn't, but the next year she said she met
Kelly at a Nike store in Chicago, hoping he
would remember her, and that he personally gave
his phone number.
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 Later on, Stephanie said she
would sometimes wait for him for hours at his
studio, before he eventually emerged and they
had sex.
She also said Kelly once asked her to perform
oral sex in a car, in front of onlookers. "It
was disgusting," she said. On
cross-examination, Kelly's lawyer Nicole Blank
Becker tried to emphasize it was Stephanie's
decision to stay with Kelly, and Stephanie
agreed when asked if she could have simply
walked away.
Earlier on Thursday, jurors heard from former
studio manager Tom Arnold, who told jurors he
would regularly be "fined" by Kelly if he didn't
follow the singer's rules.
He said the last straw came in 2011, shortly
before he quit, when Kelly told him to find a
female tour guide for him and his entourage for
a VIP outing at Disney World in Florida.
Arnold said he could find only a male guide,
prompting Kelly to cancel the outing and dock
the entire amount, $1,500, from his final weekly
paycheck.
Kelly also faces sex-related criminal charges in
Illinois and Minnesota. He has pleaded not
guilty.
(Reporting by Maria Caspani in New York; Editing
by Noeleen Walder and Rosalba O'Brien)
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