R. Kelly’s criminal trial in Brooklyn remains underway. The disgraced R&B singer is charged with several sex crimes, including sex trafficking and abuse of minors. Kelly has pleaded guilty, but more than a dozen accusers claim otherwise. His former executive assistant Diana Copeland, however, gave conflicting reports about Kelly’s abuse. Copeland, who worked 16 years for Kelly, says that although she found some of Kelly’s behavior control, she didn’t witness any abuse.
Copeland doesn’t believe Kelly had recruiters to help him. She also told Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan that due to Kelly’s popularity, that wasn’t necessary. “He never asked me, but at the time…he was R. Kelly, a mega superstar,” She said. “He needed no help to recruit women, or to get women.”
Several of Kelly’s former girlfriends have testified that Kelly would lock them in rooms and not allow them access to food or water if they did not abide by the singer’s long list of rules. Some of the rules they claim Kelly enacted included them referring to him as “daddy,” not making eye contact or having interactions with other men, and requesting to use the bathroom and eat.
Copeland claims she has never seen a woman be held against her will. “When this case came up, I was reading women were locked up and kidnapped. That’s not what I’m seeing. I’m not seeing anyone trying to leave. Every woman that left walked right out the door,” Strahan was informed by Copeland.
“He would have live-in girlfriends; they had their own rooms,” She went on. “In those properties, there was like, a certain decorum. That was expected. “No one is allowed to wander. I don’t know if they asked permission to leave their room.”
But Copeland did admit in court that Kelly’s girlfriends were not able to make contact with men or interact with them. She recounted one incident where she left his girlfriend in an elevator by mistake. The woman was turned to the wall after another man walked in. As a result, she did not see Copeland leave. Copeland told Strahan that sometimes during outings, Kelly’s girlfriends would as if she could interact with men on their behalf.
When asked whether or not she missed any signs that Kelly was an abuser, she says she only saw Kelly as a “family man” and a “businessman.” She also told Strahan that her responsibilities for Kelly ended “At the threshold of his bedroom door.