R. Kelly considered himself a 'genius' who could act with impunity

NEW YORK • One of R. Kelly's alleged accusers recounted in testimony on Thursday that the singer said "genius" artistes could behave as they pleased and compared himself to singer Jerry Lee Lewis, who married a child.

The woman, who testified only as Stephanie, said she was 17 during her six-month relationship with Kelly in 1999.

She recalled a conversation with the R&B artiste and two others when he said he preferred "young girls" and questioned why "people make such a big deal of it".

"Look at Jerry Lee Lewis," she quoted Kelly as saying, referring to the influential rock and roll pioneer who controversially married his 13-year-old second cousin in the 1950s.

"He's a genius and I'm a genius. We should be able to do whatever we want," Kelly is alleged to have said. "Look at what we give the world."

Stephanie, now 39, is the third accuser to take the stand against Kelly, 54.

He is on trial in Brooklyn federal court for racketeering, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, bribery and forced labour between 1994 and 2018.

Stephanie first met Kelly at a McDonald's outlet in Chicago, where one of his associates gave her his phone number on a slip of paper. She threw it away and did not see him until a year later, when he was holding a promotional event at a Nike store near where she worked.

She approached him hoping he could help her friend, an aspiring singer.

That help never came, but Stephanie and Kelly soon after began a sexual relationship, with the superstar brushing it off when she told him she was only 17, according to testimony.

She described sex with Kelly as "humiliating", describing in lurid detail his demands and saying he routinely filmed their sexual encounters.

He once forced her to perform oral sex on him in a vehicle with others in the car, she said, and sometimes left her naked and alone in rooms for hours.

"He could put the fear of God in me very quickly," she said, saying she performed sex acts because "I didn't feel like I had a choice".

She said she had suffered past abuse both at home and by a former boss, and feared what the singer would do with their sex tapes.

Around the time she turned 18, Stephanie said she decided to stop seeing Kelly: "I felt used and humiliated and degraded. I just didn't want to be abused anymore."

The first two weeks of the long-anticipated trial has included searing testimony from accusers, offering a glimpse into the sprawling web of physical, sexual and emotional abuse Kelly is accused of steering for more than two decades.

Kelly, whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, denies all charges and faces between 10 years and life in prison if convicted on all counts.

The trial is expected to last at least a month.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE