Source: Chicago Tribune / Getty
A shocking twist developed over the weekend in the case of R.Kelly’s ongoing federal sex trafficking trial. The disgraced singer’s former executive assistant Diana Copeland appeared in an exclusive interview with Michael Strahan on September 17 where she claimed that she “never witnessed” seeing the singer engage in sexual abuse or misconduct with the various women he was involved with over the years, The New York Post reported.
“Now, I did come and go, so I mean, I want to make sure that I am clear that my experience does not negate anybody else’s experience,” Copeland told viewers in the Good Morning America interview.
Michael then went on to ask Copeland, who served as Kelly’s off and on again assistant for 16 years, if she ever helped the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer to recruit underage women, to which she replied:
“He never asked me, but at the time … he was R. Kelly, a mega superstar. He needed no help to recruit women, or to get women.”
Copeland insisted that she never witnessed any of the alleged abuse described during the trial, including kidnapping and sexual assault.
“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,” Copeland explained.
Elsewhere in her puzzling testimony, Copeland recalled her experience of managing the singer’s estate where she was in charge of paying the star’s houseworkers, in addition to making travel arrangements for his bevy of “live-in girlfriends.” Copeland, who cited that she had access to identification for all Kelly’s alleged victims, explained that none of the women invited to the singer’s home were under the age of 18. However, Copeland did reveal that Kelly had strict rules in place for the girls living on the property.
“He would have live-in girlfriends; they had their own rooms,” she said. “In those properties, there was like, a certain decorum. That was expected. “Nobody is able to roam,” said Copeland of the singer’s stringent rules. “As far as like in their room, I don’t know that they had to ask permission to leave.”
According to Copeland, guests were required to knock on the walls before entering a part of his house to announce their presence– a rule that was allegedly put in place by Kelly’s ex-wife.
“He said, ‘Listen, I have people in my house 24 hours a day … I have workers in my house 24 hours a day. The least that everybody can do is just knock to let me know you’re there,'” Copeland said, adding that she didn’t see anything odd about the Grammy-award-winning artist’s demands.
“I know that celebrities have unique rules based on their likes and their dislikes. You know — he doesn’t like mustard on his hamburger — that’s odd to me too, but I did it. This is his home. He wants us to knock. It wasn’t a big deal for me.”
Copeland ended the controversial interview by noting that while she knew R. Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, as a “family man” and a “businessman,” that her relationship with the star ended “at the threshold of his bedroom door.” Copeland said she only learned of the singer’s atrocities after she left her position.
“I think they’re absolutely terrible, ” Copeland said of R.Kelly’s allegations. “… it’s not something I would ever condone. Ever.”
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