Sex wasn’t just a pleasurable pastime for jailed singer R. Kelly, it was the shamed former superstar’s preferred “weapon” of choice, according to Reshona Landfair.
The 41-year-old mother of one, and author of the new memoir “Who Was Watching Shorty: Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse,” out now, is coming forward as the 14-year-old girl featured in the disgraced R&B singer’s graphic video.
The foul footage, filmed in the late 1990s, shows R. Kelly, née Robert Sylvester Kelly, urinating on an intoxicated, nude and underage Landfair.
Though R. Kelly was acquitted of charges stemming from the video in 2008, he is currently serving concurrent 20- and 30-year prison sentences, for racketeering and sex crimes, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butler, North Carolina.
Representatives for the musician were not immediately available to provide a comment to The Post.
His attorney, however, previously released a statement, saying, in part, “At a young age, Ms. Landfair was unfairly forced into the public eye against her will by people who were intent on destroying the reputation of R. Kelly. She did not deserve that.”
Landfair exclusively told The Post, despite the fact that all eyes were on Kelly — a three-time Grammy winner — during their illegal involvement in the early aughts, no one ever truly saw the mental, emotional and sexual abuse she endured as a teen.
“It was like, everybody was watching [him], but nobody was seeing the bigger picture of what was really going on [with me],” she said.
Throughout her book, the Chicago native, once an aspiring preteen rapper and basketball star, details the manipulative tactics that Kelly — who was age 30 at the onset of their sordid affair — allegedly used to transform her into his submissive sexual servant when she was just 13.
“Robert used sex as a weapon of control,” writes Landfair. “He was good at it.”
In her book, Landfair says the “Snake” singer initially introduced her to phone sex.
“With a grown man’s confidence, he reassured me that what we were doing was natural and that my body wanted it as much as his,” says Landfair in the tome, claiming Kelly coached her on touching her private parts during their private phone calls.
The innocent made sure to speak with the superstar — whom she met through her famous aunt, Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards — out of earshot from her parents, Greg and Valerie.
Sparkle has emphatically denied having any knowledge of the abuse in a statement to The Post, saying, in part, “Any suggestion that I groomed, facilitated or enabled harm to my niece is untrue and deeply painful.”
“When I was informed her parents were allowing Reshona to spend unchaperoned time with R. Kelly, I immediately called the Department of Children and Family Services,” Sparkle insisted. “When the tape surfaced and the state brought charges against him in 2008, I cooperated fully and testified under oath.”
Once fully infatuated with Kelly — or “Daddy” as the teen was allegedly groomed to call him — Landfair claims that she was given a set of strict rules to obey.
“No. 1 — Don’t make eye contact with any man. No. 2 — No talking to men other than my dad or grandpa without Robert there,” she lists. “No. 3 —No calling Robert “Daddy” in front of people. No. 4— Be pleasant but not chatty so my interest won’t make someone think I’m flirting. No. 5 —Don’t wear clothing that shows my cleavage or shape, and wear platform shoes to appear taller and older.”
There were times, of course, when Landfair wouldn’t or couldn’t cater to Kelly’s every whim — especially sexually. In those cases, she claims the singer would force her to watch him satiate his carnal cravings with another person.
“‘If you say no, I’m finna find someone else who’ll say yes,’” she recalls Kelly threatening. “I can be replaced.”
“It was horrible to be forced to watch someone else’s naked body do what I refused to,” Landfair continues in the book, adding that the indecent encounters often happened in Kelly’s Chicago recording studio space. “When they came in, they were often blindfolded so they couldn’t see me. I was his secret, and he didn’t want someone to be able to identify me.”
Landfair says she typically was tasked with doing more than watching.
“Sometimes, after I watched, he would force me to join and have me perform a sex act with the blindfolded person as a test,” she writes in her memoir. “It always felt like a test that I had better pass the first time.”
Kelly, according to Landfair, also had a penchant for filming nearly all of their sexual activities. She says he convinced her that the videotapes were being made for her own good. But in reality, the “I Believe I Can Fly” performer used them to scare the teen into silence.
“‘Am I right that you don’t want nobody to see a tape of you sexing me up?’” Landfair remembers being asked. “‘These tapes will be like motivation for you to keep our secret. For you to never forget and let something slip by accident. Because you don’t want nobody to see tapes of your t—ties or anything, do you?”
A shaken Landfair never disclosed the details of her sexual relationship to her parents, friends or Aunt Sparkle — not until that vile video leaked in the early 2000s, triggering Kelly’s six-year child pornography trial. He was ultimately found “not guilty” after Landfair refused to testify during the court proceedings.
But she tells The Post that as horrific as it was being Kelly’s secret lover, the chart-topper often balanced out the sourness with some sweetness.
“Not everything could be bad because then I could possibly lash out [against him],” said Landfair, who Kelly gifted a car, a puppy, and a few exotic getaways throughout their 13-year entanglement. She officially parted ways with Kelly at age 26 in 2009. “I was pacified with certain things.”
“There were highs and lows.“
But Landfair, now an advocate for abuse survivors, warns against being placated with pricey purchases.
“Robert would treat me to nice things: shopping sprees, dinners out, going to the movies or some other fun thing, the latest sneakers, jewelry,” she says in the tome. “Somewhere inside of me, I believed that a relationship was kind of like hazing. You grit your teeth and cry your way through the bad stuff to reap the good stuff.”
“I gave Robert all that I was. He gave me his crumbs,” Landfair groans. “And every crumb had a receipt.”
