Former Real Housewives of Atlanta star Porsha Williams is opening up about her frightening experience with disgraced R&B singer and convicted sex trafficker R. Kelly.
In her upcoming memoir The Pursuit of Porsha: How I Grew Into My Power and Purpose, Williams detailed her sexual relationship with Kelly when she was 25 years old and why she ultimately went to the authorities in the aftermath.
“I realized it was my opportunity to help anyone who’s been hurt by him,” Williams told People. “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 the book, the RHOA alum says she was flown to Chicago to meet Kelly after meeting a friend of his who told her he could help with her as she was considering music career at the time. Instead of being driven to the studio, Williams explained that she was taken to Kelly’s home where she met the entertainer and was subsequently led to his bedroom where she was left alone for hours until he finally joined her and told her to remove her clothes.
“I’ve already put myself in this position,” Williams wrote in her memoir. “This is what you’re supposed to do. You have to. There is no turning back.”
Williams then went on to explain how she saw Kelly two more times after their initial encounter and came in contact with “several other women” who were also staying in Kelly’s home. She wrote that she made the decision not to see the “Ignition” singer anymore after she woke up to the sounds of a woman getting beaten in another room.
The unfortunate situation was one that Williams apparently kept a secret from her close family and friends over years, but as she further explained, she was glad to share it with her mother in the hopes that her story could help women.
“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,” Williams 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.”
She continued: “But I was glad when I did, she was glad that I told her and we talked about it. 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.”
You can find The Pursuit of Porsha when it hits bookshelves Nov. 30.