EXCLUSIVE: R. Kelly's 'Jane Doe' Child Abuse Victim Reshona Landfair Reveals She Was a Virgin When Rapper Filmed Himself Horrifically Molesting Her When She Was 14
R. Kelly's 'Jane Doe' victim is detailing her abuse at the hands of the singer.
Feb. 2 2026, Published 4:45 p.m. ET
The world may first have seen Reshona Landfair as an unnamed child in a grainy s-- tape, but those who saw the sickening footage never knew the most shattering detail – that she was a virgin when R. Kelly filmed himself molesting her at 14.
RadarOnline.com can reveal that now, aged 43, she is finally stepping out from behind the "Jane Doe" label attached to her in court to state, in her own words, exactly what the singer – born Robert Sylvester Kelly – ripped from her.
Reshona Landfair performed with the family hip-hop group 4 the Cause.
The Chicago-born former teen rapper, who once performed with family hip-hop group 4 the Cause, was pulled into Kelly's nightmarish orbit in the mid-1990s after he became close to her musically ambitious relatives.
What began as mentorship from a global R&B star evolved into a secret "godfather" role, then an abusive relationship that stretched over a decade.
In a new memoir and her first in-depth interview, Landfair said the illicit recording that would eventually fuel a criminal case against Kelly captured the moment he stole her virginity and left her living with a public stigma she never asked for.
Reshona Landfair's Memoir Details
R. Kelly filmed himself molesting Landfair when she was 14 years old.
Across her searing autobiography – titled Who's Watching Shorty? Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly's Abuse, which is out Tuesday, February 3 – Landfair revisits the night of the tape in painful detail.
She writes by the time the camera was rolling, she was a confused teenager with her "mind soupy" from champagne Kelly kept pressing on her, still emotionally and physically a child and still a virgin.
She said reality was never acknowledged in the years when bootleg copies of the tape were sold on street corners and used as punchlines.
To the world, she was "the R. Kelly girl." To herself, she said, she was a terrified minor who had just had her first sexual experience recorded and passed around for strangers' consumption.
Landfair traces how Kelly's control intensified around that period.
She recalled secret calls and constant reinforcement their bond was special and consensual, even as she was pushed into acts she did not understand.
Behind the scenes, she said, punishments could be brutal, with the singer recording himself hitting her hard enough to draw blood.
All the while, the tape of his abuse – footage of a 14-year-old virgin, as she emphasizes – circulated in courts.
Understanding the Scale of R. Kelly's Vile Behavior
Prosecutors described a system of isolation and coercion during the trials.
The singer's crimes have since been laid out in courtrooms from New York to Chicago. Jurors heard how, over the years, Kelly used fame, money, and an entourage to target underage girls, isolate them from family and friends, and coerce them into s-- acts he sometimes filmed.
Prosecutors described a system in which teenage girls and young women were ordered to seek permission to eat or use the bathroom and taught to address him in infantilizing terms.
Kelly, once hailed as a musical hero, is now serving multi-decade federal sentences for racketeering, s-- trafficking, and producing child sexual abuse imagery.
At the center of that pattern, Landfair argues, is the child she was when he first filmed her.
She said understanding she was a virgin that day is key to understanding the scale of his violation – not only of her consent, but of her childhood.
For years, she refused to watch the tape herself, only forcing herself to do so when she agreed to testify against Kelly in 2022.
'I Was Afraid to Say My Own Name'
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Landfair has written a memoir to reclaim her identity from the shame.
"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 said about the impact of the case on her personal life.
"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."
Landfair said the book is her attempt to make sure the girl in that video is seen not as a dirty secret or a joke, but as a child who had her first sexual experience weaponized against her.
After decades spent shortening her name to "Chon" to avoid recognition, she is done hiding.
"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."
The illegal video of her at 14 years old found its way to music critic Jim DeRogatis, who published damning reports on Kelly that helped launch the first child p-------- case against the rapper.
Landfair said about her decision to now go public with her book: "It was just my final chapter of letting this situation go, releasing myself of it, my family, and not having to play in the shadows of Robert any longer.
"I just really wanted to capture the fact that I was a human being. I had dreams and aspirations. I was not just the 'R. Kelly girl.'"
