Reshona Landfair Breaks Silence With Memoir On R. Kelly Abuse

For more than two decades, the world knew Reshona Landfair only as "Jane Doe"—the anonymous girl at the center of one of the most notorious child sexual abuse scandals in the music industry. But as of Tuesday, February 3, 2026, Landfair is reclaiming her identity and her story with the release of her memoir, Who’s Watching Shorty? Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse (Legacy Lit, Hachette Book Group).

Landfair’s journey from a tomboyish, entrepreneurial young girl in Oak Park to a survivor thrust unwillingly into the public eye is harrowing. According to RadarOnline.com, she was just 14 years old and a virgin when R. Kelly—her godfather and mentor at the time—filmed himself abusing her. That illicit tape, anonymously sent to Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis in 2002, would become the explosive evidence at the heart of two criminal trials and a cultural firestorm that followed Landfair for years.

"I’m reclaiming my name because I don’t want it to be a dirty word," Landfair writes in the opening pages of her memoir. "And my body because I no longer want my image reduced to a blacked-out face of an exploited child." She describes how, after being introduced to Kelly in the mid-1990s by her aunt Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards, she was groomed into asking him to be her godfather—at her aunt’s urging—and soon after, drawn into a manipulative and abusive relationship that spanned years.

The initial footage, which prosecutors said showed Kelly handing Landfair dollar bills to make it appear she was a prostitute, led to Kelly being charged with 21 counts of child pornography in 2002. But the legal process was grueling and, for Landfair, deeply isolating. When the first trial finally began in 2008, she declined to testify, still under Kelly’s control and fearful of his threats. Kelly was acquitted, a verdict that prosecutors later said might have been different had Landfair testified. "That’s one of my biggest regrets, not telling the truth," she told CBS’s Jericka Duncan. "But again, when I have been trained and groomed since I was age 13, I started believing the lies that I was telling. It was very foggy and unclear on what I really felt versus what was right or what was wrong. And even in moments where I despised Robert, I still lied for him."

Landfair’s silence was not just the result of Kelly’s manipulation. She describes how his control extended to locking her in his home or tour bus, limiting her access to information, and subjecting her to both physical and psychological abuse. "Robert was so mad, his threats to me, to keep me denying this ever happened, often came in the form of physical and psychological abuse," Landfair writes. "Most days, I was so paralyzed with fear that I couldn’t allow myself to think of an answer Robert hadn’t told me to think." According to RadarOnline.com, punishments could be brutal, with Kelly even recording himself hitting her hard enough to draw blood.

But the pain didn’t end with the abuse. Landfair was repeatedly mocked and ridiculed in popular culture. From a notorious “Chappelle’s Show” skit to an episode of “The Boondocks,” her trauma became a punchline. "I was not made to be a victim. I was a mockery. And that was very difficult to digest. It was very disheartening to know that my body was just being displayed and tossed around," she told CBS. The public scrutiny and humiliation only compounded her suffering. "I already knew nobody could see what was happening, or if you did, surely you didn’t see it as a problem," she writes. "Everybody was looking, after all, but no one was watching."

Landfair’s story is inseparable from the larger reckoning with Kelly’s pattern of abuse. As detailed in Rolling Stone and other outlets, Kelly used his fame, wealth, and entourage to target underage girls, isolate them from their families, and coerce them into sexual acts—sometimes filming the abuse. Prosecutors described a system in which girls and young women were ordered to seek permission for basic needs and taught to address him in infantilizing terms. In 2022, Kelly was convicted in federal court on charges of producing child pornography and enticing minors into criminal sexual activity, receiving a 30-year sentence. That same year, he was also found guilty in an Illinois state trial and sentenced to 20 years, served concurrently.

Landfair’s decision to finally watch the tape—something she avoided for years—came only when she agreed to testify against Kelly in 2022. "There’s no job that I can apply for where this isn’t the forefront of my life – there’s no relationship I could be in where this isn’t the forefront of my life," she told RadarOnline.com. "I felt like I was losing power. I came to a conclusion one day, and I said, ‘If I just lay all of this out, I no longer have to explain myself. I no longer have to fear the whispers about me at the table, ‘Oh, you know who that is?’... once I realized that I didn’t have peace or privacy [by hiding], I had to take ownership."

In her memoir, Landfair is unflinching in her depiction of how the abuse and its aftermath stole her childhood, her passions, and even her name. For years, she went by "Cho" or "Jane Doe" to avoid recognition, but now she is determined to step out of the shadows. "I was afraid to say my own name and be who I really was to work, to friends," she declared. "But I’m here today as Reshona."

Landfair’s book is more than a personal reckoning—it’s a call to action. She explores the broader issues of how society shames girls, especially Black girls, for their changing bodies and often blames them for their own victimization. "It’s not easy being a girl, especially not a Black girl," she writes. "And if s*** happens, we girls are supposed to lick our wounds quietly and protect our violator’s secrets as our own … That’s why I’m raising my voice, stepping out of the shadows, and reintroducing myself. Because I know there’s a blessing in it— for me and maybe for you, too. I’m not holding on to one more lie."

Landfair closes her memoir with a message of hope and solidarity for other victims of assault, offering resources and encouragement. "I believe you. I see you," she writes, determined that her story will help others reclaim their own voices. After decades of silence and shame, Reshona Landfair is finally speaking her truth—not as a symbol, but as a survivor and a human being determined to be seen.