A new lawsuit has been filed against R&B singer R Kelly who ‘knowingly’ infected a 19-year-old girl with herpes, sexually assaulted her and locked her in rooms to punish her for failing to please him. According to the lawsuit filed yesterday, Faith Rogers alleges she was in a relationship with Kelly for less than a year, during which time he routinely abused her ‘mentally, physically and verbally. Although a representative for the singer said in April that he ‘categorically denies all claims and allegations’ in the lawsuit. Kelly has faced repeated allegations of sexual misconduct and has recently been targeted by the Time’s Up movement.

In an interview with the BBC, Faith described Kelly’s alleged sexual misconduct. In May 2017, Faith says Kelly flew her to New York to attend one of his concerts. During their first sexual encounter, Rogers told the singer that she was not ready to have sex, but he forced her to take off her clothes. She further described his behaviour towards her as ‘really aggressive’. Faith also claims that Kelly told ‘nasty and degrading things’ to her.

Faith later discovered that she had contracted herpes. “I was devastated,” she says. “I was embarrassed; it’s not something that’s going to go away. The hardest part was coming clean to my family about everything… I blame myself a lot.” On other occasions, Kelly instructed her to perform sexually while he filmed her on his iPad, she claims. “He turned on all the lights, pulled out his iPad and told me to get naked. He was demanding that I do stuff on camera that I wasn’t comfortable doing whatsoever.”   

In recent months, the singer has faced numerous sexual misconduct allegations by former girlfriends. A #MuteRKelly movement was established that called out to boycott of the Grammy Award-winning singer’s music and concerts. Music streaming services, including Spotify and Apple have removed R Kelly’s songs from some of their playlists and a petition calling for a ‘worldwide mute’ on the singer has attracted more than 70,000 signatures. R Kelly was contacted about the issues raised in this interview but BBC Three received no response.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 22, 2018 09:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).