A witness in the criminal trial of R. Kelly said the R&B singer kept watch over his girlfriends during their interview with CBS News anchor Gayle King, The Associated Press reported Tuesday.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe, testified in court that Kelly would cough during the interview to signal when the women needed to back up his claims that he didn’t sexually abuse them.
“He was letting us know he was in the room with us,” the woman told jurors.
Kelly drew widespread criticism over the 2019 “CBS This Morning” interview in which he shouted in anger at King when she asked him questions about his past.
The interview aired shortly after Kelly’s arrest on sex abuse charges.
The woman who testified Tuesday also said that girlfriends were not allowed to watch the “Surviving R. Kelly” docuseries, adding that they were told to change the channel “immediately,” the AP reported.
Two other witnesses have testified in the sex trafficking case against Kelly, claiming that the Grammy Award-winning singer used his stardom to lure them into being sex slaves when they were teenagers, the AP reported.
Kelly, whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly, has pleaded not guilty to nine counts stemming from accusations of bribery and extortion. If convicted, he could be sentenced to decades in prison.
Kelly, 54, is also facing sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota.