Whew! Drea Kelly is spillin’ all the tea about her relationship with R. Kelly. She even got real about the alleged abuse she went through and broke down why she decided to keep his last name.
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Drea Kelly Reveals Why She Kept Her Last Name
Andrea (a.k.a. Drea Kelly) recently sat down with Carlos King on his podcast ‘Reality With The King’ and didn’t waste any time addressing the drama surrounding R. Kelly. Furthermore, she confirmed that she first crossed paths with Robert when she was just 19 and he was 27. During the interview, she called out folks who have a problem with her keeping the R&B singer’s last name despite everything she’s been through and his charges. If you needed a lil’ refresher, TSR previously reported that R. Kelly is serving a 30-year bid for sex trafficking.
“At the end of the day, people shouldn’t be worried about why I kept the last name. They should be worried about what I do with the last name. Cause the last name ‘Kelly’ gets 20/20 to follow me. The last name gets me on CNN to talk about domestic violence awareness and be an advocate. The last name Kelly allowed me to go on military bases and talk about abuse,” Drea said.
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Drea went on to say that the real “gag” is that nobody would even blink if her last name wasn’t Kelly. “My name means more to you than it does to me. You’re not trying to be an advocate, you’re being nosey; why, because my last name is Kelly.”
Drea Gets Real About Relationship With R. Kelly & Opens Up About Alleged Abuse
Drea kept it all the way real, admitting she wasn’t even checking for R. Kelly (aka Robert Kelly) while on tour with him at first. But after finding out her ex-fiancé cheated, she gave Robert a shot. She told Carlos that when she came back from tour, she learned her fiancé had a baby — but a DNA test later showed the child wasn’t even his.
The dancer also dished that after her ex-fiancé did her dirty, R. Kelly stepped in as her shoulder to lean on. Their bond eventually grew tighter while working together since she practically turned into his go-to creative director.
However, Drea opened up about how things went left in their relationship, claiming Robert started putting her through abuse. She said she had no idea who he really was at first because of his “narcissistic” ways. The breaking point for her came when he went off on her in front of their daughter, Joann. For context, the estranged exes share three kids — Joann, aka Buku Abi, Jaah Kelly, and Robert Kelly Jr. Drea also mentioned her children could tell the vibe was way different when Robert wasn’t around compared to when he was.
Drea continued not to hold back when she addressed the women dragging her on social media, especially the ones constantly comparing her to Tina Turner. She made it clear that the only difference between her and Tina is this: Tina sang onstage with her abuser while she danced onstage with hers.
“I brought a whole womb. I birthed children, so for women to even say something like that is sad to me, and because you can’t clock what I do, because you haven’t done your research, you think it’s okay to go on the internet and say, ‘She don’t do nothing, Tina Turner did something.’ The only difference between me and Tina Turner is she sang on the stage with Ike, I danced on one with Robert,” Drea continued.
