A once anonymous R Kelly survivor is reclaiming her voice in a new memoir.

Rashona Lanfair was known as Jane Doe when she testified at the disgraced R&B singer federal trial back in 2022.

She was the 14-year-old girl in the infamous sex video that ultimately led to racketeering and sex trafficking convictions and a 30-year prison sentence for Kelly.

In her book, Who’s Watching? Shorty Rashona recounts the decadel long abusive relationship with the man who called her his godaughter.

The man to whom she said she lost her virginity to her voice and her emotional well-being.

Rashona Lanfair joins us now.

Rashona, thank you so much for speaking with us.

For years, you hid your identity.

You say that you were just known as the R Kelly girl.

Why did you feel that you needed to write this book? I wrote this book for um a few reasons.

The first is it was only the true way of me to reclaim myself, my name, and who I really was as a person and just to become out of the shadows of the R Kelly girl and live in that orbit.

I want to read just a passage from your book in regard to your father.

It reads in part, “I wish you had been suspicious enough to catch Robert in the act of making sneaky sexual gestures toward me.

I wish you had noticed the confusion that lurked behind my smiles.

Dad, I never doubted your love for me.

I just wish that your love could have pushed past your fear and fought for me.

You note in your book that no one in your world was trying to protect you from Robert Kelly.

Uh your father passed away a few years ago.

You had a strained relationship with your mother.

Uh she also read your book.

What’s your relationship like with her now as well as the rest of your family? Um first rest in peace to my father.

Um there were a lot of things in the studio that were very distracting.

um he was very focused on music and when those things were happening I I was very scared and very fearful and was hoping that he would just notice something or feel something that felt uncomfortable.

Um my mom and I are um a family.

We love each other very diff very dearly.

We’re in therapy and really trying to focus on our relationship.

When it comes to the infamous sex video where your identity was out there during the trial, you ask this very poignant question in your book.

You say, “I wonder if my body hadn’t been brown, would anyone outside of the jury have seen it exposed and abused? Would anyone even know my name?” Historically, as you know, black and brown girls have been systemically over sexualized if your body hadn’t been brown, as you say.

Do you think that there would have been a different outcome? Um, I just Everybody deserves to be treated fairly, no matter the color of your skin.

Um, I do think think I do think things could have been handled differently and would have been handled differently if you know it was a different situation.

However, I was very exposed and tossed around in the public eye and you know the sex tape really just took over my entire identity.

You’re 41 years old now.

You of course experienced a lot of trauma, a lot of healing.

You’re now a mother of a five-year-old.

What would you want your 5-year-old to know going into those teenage years that you felt like you didn’t know? Um, I grew up uh, you know, a pop star.

I was very popular like overseas.

I grew up around a lot of adults and um just really keeping control of that environment, keeping the environment kid-friendly and just really understanding that adults, you know, just because they’re close family, they’re not necessarily your friends and just really staying in, you know, good graces with childhood.

Who would you say you are today? Again, I’m a mother.

Um I’m a mentor.

I’m still a work in progress.

I’m still healing.

Um, the purpose of this book again was just to restore myself and reclaim my name and just to give people hope that have suffered trauma in silence and just giving them a voice and inspiring them to speak up.

You said that your passion is to now help those who have gone through similar experiences.

You’re the founder of Project Refine, a mentor program for young women.

Tell us about the organization and and how it’s helped you heal.

So, Project Refine um just gives me the opportunity to turn my pain into purpose.

I really focus on younger girls, single moms, and just really pouring into their lives and changing their outcomes of who they become and just really just trying to be the best person I can be through like in other of other people.

Rona Lanfair, we thank you so much for sharing your story.

The book, Who’s Watching? Shorty: Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R Kelly’s abuse is available now.

R Kelly’s legal team has provided a statement.

It reads, “Mr.Kelly has not seen the memoir.

Therefore, he cannot comment on any specific allegation.

The experience of the Chicago federal trial already demonstrated that memoirs and documentaries often contain information that proves to be false.

This is how my office got Mr.Kelly’s business manager, Daryl McDavid, exonerated on all charges.

Nonetheless, Mr.Kelly does not wish to engage in any kind of reputation that would in any way limit the financial success of Miss Lanfair’s memoir.

She was thrust into the public eye against her will at an early age by unscrupulous persons intent on assassinating the reputation of Mr.Kelly.

She did not deserve that or the years of torment that followed from it.

Therefore, if there is a financial benefit Miss Lanfair can get now by using Mr.Kelly’s name in a book, he wants her to have it.

He wishes her success and peace at all levels.