Who Wouldn’t Want Two Girls In Their 20’s?
By: Tommy “Tj” Sotomayor

One day after R. Kelly returned to TV for a dramatic interview with Gayle King, “CBS This Morning” aired King’s discussion with Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary, two women who are romantically linked with Kelly, whose parents accuse Kelly of keeping them as “sex slaves” and brainwashing them.

During the interview, which aired Thursday morning, Savage and Clary told King that they were both “in a relationship” together with Kelly, that they loved him and that they were not being held against their will.

“We both have our individual relationships with him, and we all are a family, all together,” Clary said.

Clary and Savage also echoed some of the more shocking claims Kelly made in his own TV appearance, mainly that the Savage and Clary families “sold” their daughters to Kelly, encouraged them to become sexually involved with him when they were underage, and are now retaliating because Kelly allegedly stopped paying them money. ADVERTISEMENT

“My parents told me to lie about my age, so when I first met Kelly, he thought I was 18,” Clary said. “When I was 17, my parents were trying to make me take photos with him, take sexual videos with him. And they said, if they ever had to blackmail him, which they’re trying to do now, they can use it against him, which is exactly what they’re doing.”PAID STORY FROM DISCOVERWhat does pride mean to you?

“Our parents are out here just to get money,” Savage said, nodding in agreement with Clary.

“They’re starting to send threats to both me and him, they said, ‘I’ll put all your naked pictures all over the world, I’m going to ruin you and him if he don’t send 20,000 to this bank account by Monday, and then 10,000 after that,'” Clary added, before addressing her parents. “You’re trying to solicit me like I’m some kind of (expletive prostitute). I’m not, I’m your child.”

The Savage and Clary families have both publicly denied that they ever asked Kelly for money.

Jean Puls, whose 6-month-old son Brad was killed by Nancy Moronez, reads a statement about how his death affected her life. His death was initially blamed on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS. (Photo: Rick Wood / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Clary also addressed her family’s claims that she had singing aspirations when she met Kelly as a teenager and that Kelly offered to mentor her. Clary claimed instead that her parents “made singing like a job for me,” and forced her to pursue a singing career. 

“I tried to kill myself because I did not want to sing, as a cry for help,” Clary said. 

Medical records reviewed by CBS News showed that Clary attributed her suicide attempt to issues with her then-boyfriend, and told doctors that music helped calm her down.

When the “CBS This Morning” broadcast resumed, King shared that while Kelly was not in the same room as Clary and Savage while she interviewed them, he was standing behind them around the corner, and at several points would “cough very loudly” so they would know he was listening, with the singer even attempting to stop the interview at several points. 

In his interview on Wednesday, Kelly told King that the Clary and Savage families behaved irresponsibly when they brought their daughters to his concerts, where he first met both women.

“What kind of father, what kind of mother, would sell their daughter to a man?” he said. “How come it was OK for me to see them until they wasn’t getting no money from me? If I was gonna take my 19-year-old daughter to (the concert of) a 49-year-old icon, celebrity, whatever, I’m not gonna put her on the stage and leave her… Their fathers know more about my music than they do.”

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Following Kelly’s interview on Wednesday, the Savage family held a press conference condemning Kelly and urging their daughter to get in touch. Shortly after, Savage called her family, the first contact she made with them in two years, telling them she’s “very happy.”

The family’s Atlanta lawyer, Gerald Griggs shared video of the family’s side of the call on Twitter, in which the 23-year-old Savage tells them, “I’ve told you guys a million, million times, that I’m OK and I’m very happy, you know where I’m at.”

The video shows her mother, Jonjelyn Savage, and her sisters, Jori, 11, and Jailyn, 18, asking her, “When are you coming home?”

“How do we know you’re happy if we haven’t heard from you for two years?” her mother tells her. “Why can’t you call your family or friends or come to your grandfather’s funeral or talk to your grandmother who has Stage 4 cancer?”

Joycelyn hung up after about three minutes, Griggs told USA TODAY, and he said she appeared to be “reading from a script.”

“When her little sister asked her, how’re you doing, she paused for 45 seconds,” Griggs said. “She called because she and someone in Kelly’s camp saw our press conference (responding to Kelly’s CBS interview). That broke through whatever control (Kelly) has over her.”

Kelly is currently back behind bars following a Wednesday child support hearing, at which he was charged with failure to pay $161,000 in back child support. Failure to pay child support in any amount over $20,000 is a felony under Illinois law. 

Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sam Randall told USA TODAY Kelly was taken into custody in the courtroom He will stay in the county jail until he pays what he owes. His next court date related to the case was set for March 13.