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R. Kelly is engaged to one of his alleged victims, the woman revealed in a letter calling for a lighter sentence for the convicted sex trafficker.
“My name is Joycelyn Savage and I’m Robert Kelly’s fiancee,” judge Ann Donnelly, 26, said June 13 in the letter Page Six received.
“I am writing this letter to support Robert ahead of his sentencing so that I can explain to the court that I am not the victim the government has portrayed me as.”
Savage, who was one of Kelly’s two local friends, gushed in the letter about her relationship with the 55-year-old “I Believe I Can Fly” singer, saying they had a “special connection” and “deep love.”
“Robert is not the monster the government has described him as,” she added. “The Robert I know is very sweet, gentle and kind. At the end of the day, he always made sure I was taken care of and so was every other woman he was with.”
Savage went on to praise Kelly’s character, calling him an “all-around incredible person” who “takes every opportunity to help those in need.”
The aspiring singer subsequently denied the allegations made about the disgraced R&B star, noting that “the things that have been said about him, that I and other women are being held against our will, are absolutely untrue.”
“Robert and I are very much in love and it breaks my heart that the government did it
created a narrative that I am a victim,” she concluded. “I am a grown woman and can speak for myself, which is why I wanted to submit this letter to the court.”
Despite Savage’s plea, Kelly was sentenced June 29 to 30 years in prison on one charge of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which bans the transportation of “any woman or girl” across state lines for “immoral purposes.”
Savage has been a staunch defender of Kelly despite multiple allegations of predatory behavior and abuse against the “Trapped in the Closet” singer, many of which were featured in the bombastic documentary series Surviving R. Kelly.
In March 2019, the Atlanta native, who met Kelly when she was 19, claimed her parents made the allegations against the Grammy winner out of retaliation for “money and fraud” because they “didn’t agree” to a music deal they had .
However, in November of that year, it was reported that Savage had made her own claims of assault against Kelly on the paid membership platform Patreon.
“It was my delusion why anyone would claim to love keeping me caged like a frigging animal,” she reportedly shared in one of her posts.
Savage then denied she was behind the account in December 2019, claiming someone impersonated her.
She hasn’t posted anything about her engagement to Kelly on her Instagram account, but she’s not very active on the profile.
Meanwhile, her parents doubt whether the marriage proposal actually ever took place.
They told TMZ through their attorney on Monday that they found it “strange” that Savage didn’t testify under oath about the engagement and instead “pushed” it into a letter to the court.
A Kelly representative could not be immediately reached for comment.
The “Ignition” singer has previously been married twice. He had a short-lived — and illegal — marriage to his late protégé, Aaliyah, in the mid-’90s when she was 15 and he was 27. Kelly was then married to choreographer Andrea Lee from 1996 to 2009.
