Parents of R. Kelly’s 21-Year-Old Girlfriend Tell Gayle King They “Failed” Daughter
The parents of R. Kelly’s live-in girlfriend Azriel Clary sat down for an emotional interview with Gayle King that’s set to air Wednesday morning.
Alice and Angelo Clary told the CBS This Morning co-host they think their 21-year-old daughter duped them from the beginning of her relationship with Kelly, whom she met in 2015.
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The Clarys were featured in Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly. They said in the six-part docuseries that their daughter met Kelly when she was an aspiring teenage singer. They allowed the then 17 year old to go on tour with the “I Believe I Can Fly” singer, hoping it would help her career.
In their first interview since the docuseries aired in January, the couple told King they were assured by several women in Kelly’s camp that Azriel was in “good hands.”
They now say they haven’t seen their daughter in three years, and believe she’s been brainwashed. Still, the couple said they “take responsibility” for the “sick situation” Azriel is in with the 52-year-old performer.
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“I feel like I failed my daughter because I should have saw different signs,” Angelo told King. “I should have saw the change in my baby girl instead of the love that we instilled in her, that she was showing us and putting on a charade. So guess what? We can take responsibility. But to the world, how much responsibility did R. Kelly take?”
Azriel and Kelly’s other girlfriend, 23-year-old Joycelyn Savage, sat down with King last week.
The two young women said they are both in love with the Grammy winner and insisted there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship.
Azriel went on to call her father “a manipulative liar” and claimed her parents “were actually making me, trying to get me to take photos with him [Kelly], take sexual videos with him,” which the Clarys denied.
Angelo told King he is heartbroken about the entire ordeal.
“This [is] a sick situation that nobody – nobody – would ever see – think we would be in because [of] how protective we are of our children,” he said.
Last month Chicago prosecutors charged Kelly with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for allegedly abusing four females, including three underage girls.
Kelly pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly denied the allegations.
You can watch King’s full interview with the Clarys, Wednesday, March 13, on CBS This Morning from 7:00-9:00 a.m. ET/PT.
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