Porsha Williams is opening about her encounters with disgraced singer R. Kelly, something some of her closest friends are only now hearing for the first time.
The "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star revealed to People magazine that she met with investigators and told them about her brief, disturbing experiences with Kelly.
"I realized it was my opportunity to help anyone who's been hurt by him," she said. "There had been so many other instances where I had been abused by men that my mentality [at that time] was of an abused person, and that it was okay for me to be treated like that."
In her upcoming memoir, "The Pursuit of Porsha," the reality TV star details meeting Kelly in 2007 via a friend, having been flown to Chicago for an introduction. After landing, Porsha, who was contemplating a career in music at the time, assumed she'd be taken to a recording studio, but she was instead taken to Kelly's home.
After being formally introduced to the singer, Porsha claims she was led to his bedroom and left alone for hours. Once Kelly entered the room, he instructed her to take her clothes off.
"I've already put myself in this position," she wrote in the book, according to People. "This is what you're supposed to do. You have to. There is no turning back."
Porsha met with Kelly twice more and noted that she saw several young women living in his home. The final straw, she said, was when she woke up and heard a woman getting abused.
For years, Porsha didn't speak of her short fling with Kelly.
"It's not something you want to tell your mom, because my mom is a very strong woman and she did her very best in raising me," Porsha said. "And I think for any woman or man who's been in an abusive situation, you don't want to tell your parents because you don't want them to think that they had let you down in any way. I don't want her to think that she had done anything wrong. And so I took it upon myself."
"But I was glad when I did, she was glad that I told her and we talked about it," the mother-of-one continued. "She told me some of her experiences. And we just talked about how this should be told so other women don't have to go through it."
In September, Kelly was found guilty of nine federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The verdict came 13 years after he was acquitted of child pornography charges in an Illinois state trial. Sentencing is set for May 4, 2022, and he could get 10 years to life in prison. In addition, Kelly is still awaiting a second federal trial in Chicago, plus state trials in Illinois and Minnesota.