Every morning when Reshona Landfair walks into her workplace at Chicago High School, R. Kelly music blares from the speakers. The cruel irony was not lost on her. For 25 years, she was known as Jane Doe. The 14-year-old girl in Kelly’s child abuse video.
Now 41, Lanfair finally made her mark with her memoir, Who’s Watching El Chapo? ” rediscovered her name and story. “Recovering from the Shame of R. Kelly Abuse,” released this week.
“It was my music wherever I went,” Landfair told Rolling Stone of the experience of hearing Kelly’s music. “I worked at a high school, and every morning when I walked into the office, before I started my day, R. Kelly would be playing music on the loudspeaker.”
The Chicago native spent decades hiding behind an abbreviated name and hushed conversations. She introduced herself as “Chon” to avoid recognition. But that changed when she decided to testify at Kelly’s federal trial in 2022.
“I was afraid to say my name to my friends and to be who I was,” Landfer explains. “But I’m here today as Rayshawna.”
Her 240-page memoir doesn’t hold back. Landfill described how Kelly initially raised her family, providing her father with steady work as a studio musician.
He showed up at family dinners, took them to expensive restaurants and positioned himself as a godfather-like figure. The manipulative behavior began with secret phone calls when Landfill was 12 years old.
R. Kelly insisted that she call him “Daddy” in private settings. At 14, she fell into what she calls a “brainwashing” cycle of abuse, control and isolation.
“Robert intentionally hurt me when I was a child,” Landfer wrote in her book. “I was brainwashed by Robert and the sex slaves. Robert made me suicidal at a young age.”
The infamous videotape that launched Kelly’s first criminal case showed 14-year-old Landefer becoming “drowsy” in the head from champagne Kelly gave her. She revealed she was a virgin during filming.
After Kelly was arrested in 2002, Landfer’s nightmare deepened. He kept her under house arrest between a tour bus, a recording studio and a cramped office space. She slept on the chiropractor’s table and in a closet while Kelly’s team knocked on doors with a code to deliver meals.
“Everybody knows how he operates,” Landfire told Rolling Stone. “You might see me in different spaces, but I live in the garage where the gym is.”
The 2008 trial was the most troubling for her. Kelly’s attorneys used her absence as a weapon as she waited for his tour bus just 200 feet from the courthouse. Jurors cited her refusal to testify as a major factor in Kelly’s acquittal, despite testimony from more than a dozen witnesses identifying her.
“I have to live with the choices my parents and I made, as well as Robert’s abuse of other women and girls who crossed his path after his acquittal,” she wrote.
Landfill escaped Kelly’s clutches at age 26, but the trauma remains with her. She shortened her name, shunned relationships, and lived in constant fear of recognition. By 2022, she’s ready to face Kelly in court. When she testified, he gave her a “dirty look” that confirmed her decision.
“When he looked at me like that, it was proof that I was sitting in the right place,” she recalled
Even after Kelly was convicted, Chicago remained his unregulated playground. His music is played in Lyft rides, restaurants and, of course, her workplace. Despite two federal convictions, the city that birthed him still embraces his work.
“I can’t take away the memory of what fans felt when this song came out,” Landfer said of Kelly’s continued play. “The music itself was his gift. That was his strength.”
She is considering leaving Chicago but refuses to allow Kelly any other rights in her life. “I’m still here,” she said. “I still walk with my head held high.”
Landfair now works at a school health center and runs Project Refine, a mentoring program for young women. Her memoir represents the final step in reclaiming her identity from Kelly’s shadow.
While Kelly was serving concurrent 20- and 30-year sentences in a federal prison in North Carolina, Landfill’s book hit the shelves.
The memoir is officially released on February 3, 2026, published by Legacy Lit, with a foreword written by music executive and abuse survivor Drew Dixon.
