Speaker 1: Hey, fam, I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. All right, and five four three, we're
Speaker 1: back at the Red Table. I'm so glad you've joined us.
Speaker 1: For part two. We're talking about the docuseries Surviving R
Speaker 1: Kelly with a very very brave survivor, Lisa Van Allen.
Speaker 1: The lifetime docuseries Surviving R Kelly has created an international
Speaker 1: uproar over the R and B singers alleged abuse and
Speaker 1: sexual misconduct with Myers. Lisa Van Allen, one of Kelly's accusers,
Speaker 1: was only seventeen when she started dating the thirty one
Speaker 1: year old star. On part one of our special Red
Speaker 1: Table Talk Surviving R Kelly The Aftermath, Lisa described how
Speaker 1: she fell under a spell. He's a master manipulator. He
Speaker 1: knew my whole background. He knew that I was in
Speaker 1: foster care. He knew that I was adopted, like I
Speaker 1: may have been tricked here. After ten years with R. Kelly,
Speaker 1: Lisa revealed her breaking point. He specifically kept telling me
Speaker 1: to buy my daughter dresses, and I'm looking like, why
Speaker 1: does he care? Just my instincts was like the say,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling it. Van Allen's story is not unique.
Speaker 1: Kelly has been accused of isolating young girls from their
Speaker 1: families by praying on their hopes and dreams and learning
Speaker 1: them with false promises. So I know, Lisa, you have
Speaker 1: your sixteen year old daughter here and she hasn't heard
Speaker 1: the entire story of what happened to you until she
Speaker 1: watched the Yeah, I watched it with her. Are you doing?
Speaker 1: I didn't want anyone else to talk to her about it,
Speaker 1: so I felt like me and her needed to watch
Speaker 1: it together. Goodness, look at this beauty. How are you? You?
Speaker 1: Looking like your mama? Right? Thank you? Wow, it's so
Speaker 1: nice to have you here. So let me ask you,
Speaker 1: how was it two sit with your mom and hear
Speaker 1: her story. It was hard and it hurt me because
Speaker 1: nobody will hear that out there. You cry, It's okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay, come close y. Yeah. But yeah, it's changed
Speaker 1: my perspective on a lot of stuff because get it out.
Speaker 1: I know what you need to do because people are
Speaker 1: really gmental nowadays, and it's so absolutely. You know, when
Speaker 1: you hear someone's story and it's like you don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, like anyone could be going through anything, and
Speaker 1: it'll it'll know you she's doing. It'll make you realize
Speaker 1: like that's how they that's why they act the way
Speaker 1: they act, and this is why they're like this, this
Speaker 1: is why they have angry issues and stuff. And I
Speaker 1: used to always question that about my mom, like why
Speaker 1: she's so overprotective and and I understand now that it's
Speaker 1: scary out there, like people are crazy. Has anyone ever
Speaker 1: come up to you at school like saying anything about this?
Speaker 1: On social media? Is yeah, yeah, somebody DM me earlier
Speaker 1: today it was like, not to be rude, but does
Speaker 1: r Kelly seeing you guys money, Like, why would you
Speaker 1: say that for what? So I just blocked the person.
Speaker 1: That can be so hard. I know how it feels
Speaker 1: to to have people talking negatively about you on the
Speaker 1: internet or your family and you're just seeing it and
Speaker 1: you're like, what what do I do? And it makes
Speaker 1: you feel kind of powerless in a way. Yeah, they'll
Speaker 1: just make up anything and just say it's just so
Speaker 1: you can either respond or just so you can get
Speaker 1: mad or so you feelings will be hurt. Do you
Speaker 1: think that seeing that change your perspective on men? Do
Speaker 1: you feel afraid to date? Are afraid to have experiences
Speaker 1: with males? After? I'm just more cautious, just vigilant. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm not even interested in like you know, like
Speaker 1: I'm not in a rush because a lot of people nowadays,
Speaker 1: like at my school and stuff, they're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want boyfriend, boyfriend me please, And I'm like, no, okay.
Speaker 1: When you watch something like this, in what ways are
Speaker 1: you more vigilant? Did you get like certain signs you
Speaker 1: would look out for, Like how guys using the telephone
Speaker 1: for control, Like you can't post this thing texting you
Speaker 1: five hundred times a day and if you don't calling
Speaker 1: that definitely a form of control, you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 1: call me back. Yeah, he just had to this situation
Speaker 1: about that and cut that really sure? Oh really? He
Speaker 1: was telling me that he was overpowered, like she'd mocked space.
Speaker 1: Just keep when you're ignoring me back to back? What
Speaker 1: f wrong with you? Answer back? And she said, oh no,
Speaker 1: I blocked his number. He damned me on Instagram and
Speaker 1: I was like, I just need space right now and
Speaker 1: then the next day texting me, texting me call Call,
Speaker 1: Call Call. I saw it as a red flag from
Speaker 1: her experience, and then when he started getting aggressive and
Speaker 1: was like, why are you ignoring me, I'm like bye.
Speaker 1: When Willow and I were watching it together, we had
Speaker 1: some real teachable moments, you know, just like you said.
Speaker 1: I definitely realized because my mom was super she still
Speaker 1: is protective, and when I was younger, it was such
Speaker 1: a mystery to me. It was like, what is what
Speaker 1: is the big bad? Like let me know, Like I
Speaker 1: want to know what it is. You don't want to
Speaker 1: know what it is, like you really don't. There have
Speaker 1: been so many times I've had to have very real
Speaker 1: old conversations with Willow in regards to I don't care
Speaker 1: if you look at this person as like your older
Speaker 1: brother and you trust them, you're not to be alone anywhere.
Speaker 1: And we've had some very hard for me not understanding
Speaker 1: and being like why it doesn't matter her and me
Speaker 1: having to tell her it's not you, I don't trust.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing about girls, when they get to those
Speaker 1: ages of seventeen eighteen years old, you can you think
Speaker 1: you've grown right, and as a parent, you only have
Speaker 1: but so much control because I'm gonna tell you you're
Speaker 1: on my ass. You're like, you better be in his house,
Speaker 1: whether I mean you will on me. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna find a way to lie to her. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna find a way to manipulate her. Oh, I'm staying
Speaker 1: at my girlfriend's house while I'm on these streets doing
Speaker 1: whatever the hell. I would be as real. I'd be like, yam,
Speaker 1: hold up, I got a dream. Now you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get in the way of that. Like this man is
Speaker 1: saying he might give me an opportunity. You're not thinking
Speaker 1: about anything else, and I would have been able to
Speaker 1: manipulate and work my way around you. Believe that any
Speaker 1: one of us could have been as real exactly. There's
Speaker 1: a brilliant psychologist who appeared on Surviving r Kelly, doctor
Speaker 1: Candice nor Cott. It takes about seven tries for a
Speaker 1: girl to successfully leave her abuser for good. That statistic
Speaker 1: tells us how difficult it is often to pull away
Speaker 1: from these relationships. Thank you for being here. Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you to help us understand the
Speaker 1: invisible psychological chains that are created. Um. It's specifically on
Speaker 1: an impressionable. Mind, ye, mind, because a lot of the
Speaker 1: women left and came back and just trying to help
Speaker 1: us understand why that happened, because in my mind, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: once you you're gone, you're done, be done with that.
Speaker 1: You know, we see women, but it began the girl
Speaker 1: children and as children, and it's a slow, slow process.
Speaker 1: And in the human trafficking field, they're starting to use
Speaker 1: the term identity distortion. I might call you a different
Speaker 1: name and say this is the name I'm going to use,
Speaker 1: and so now you're not really who you were. Then
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you to do different things that
Speaker 1: you normally wouldn't do, and so then you can just
Speaker 1: put on that like, oh well, this is my new identity.
Speaker 1: And so when you start to then shift and get
Speaker 1: programmed into that new person, how do you go back
Speaker 1: from that? You've put in so much, you've done so much.
Speaker 1: How can I come back right? How can I come
Speaker 1: back from this? Will accept me after all everything I've done.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting because when I look at Dominique, that
Speaker 1: would be a prime example. It wasn't powerful, but the
Speaker 1: idea that her hair had been shaved tatted us. But
Speaker 1: did you guys not realize. When TMZ was interviewing the
Speaker 1: Savages daughter, nobody realized that was a girl with her.
Speaker 1: They kept saying, Oh, she's by herself, she's out with friends. No,
Speaker 1: it was still a controlling situation because he sent another
Speaker 1: one of his girls with her, So if she did
Speaker 1: try to get away, the other want to get you
Speaker 1: get what I mean? Like nobody like to face each
Speaker 1: other like right, everyone thought that that was a guy.
Speaker 1: Though that's what I'm changed her identity everything, and oftentimes
Speaker 1: that's what happens. Right. Let me tattoo you, let me
Speaker 1: brand you, or let me just make you different. With them,
Speaker 1: the person you worse, you can't go back. We had
Speaker 1: like a really big argument one time, me and Rob
Speaker 1: we were talking about breaking up everything. And it only
Speaker 1: was an argument because I had got drunk that night
Speaker 1: and I wasn't supposed to because I didn't speak up much.
Speaker 1: But I got drunk that night. The next day I
Speaker 1: was afraid I didn't know what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: He calls me down. He plays a song called I
Speaker 1: Don't Mean It that he had just wrote. So he
Speaker 1: would do things like that, write songs for you Get
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like and you're thinking, oh, this is great.
Speaker 1: You don't forgot. Would he just threw water in your
Speaker 1: face and said you're out of here? And you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? But then he comes and does something
Speaker 1: like that, and then you're kind of like, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's exactly, and that's the type of things I know
Speaker 1: he did he would do. Women don't necessarily want the
Speaker 1: relationship to stop. They just want the abuse to stop.
Speaker 1: I want to be with this person that was vulnerable
Speaker 1: with me, that shared that love with me. I just
Speaker 1: want him to be nice. I can't an abuse to stop,
Speaker 1: and so they'll stay because they're just hoping, and then
Speaker 1: they get those glimpses like you described. Would you say
Speaker 1: that in a lot of these situations that if the
Speaker 1: abuse goes unchecked, it will progress. Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean those even calling somebody out of their name, that's
Speaker 1: a test. Right. Let me see how she's going to
Speaker 1: react to that, right, let me say okay that she
Speaker 1: didn't like that. Let me pull back and just you know,
Speaker 1: get her there and then I can use it more often.
Speaker 1: That is so interesting, And you don't know what love
Speaker 1: is when you're younger. You don't know how it's supposed
Speaker 1: to look if you've never had it, if you have
Speaker 1: an abuse experience, and then especially if you're a star,
Speaker 1: right and you're inviting somebody into your world, this is
Speaker 1: how it is, right right, And me seventeen dating a
Speaker 1: thirty one year old, like, how would I know what
Speaker 1: dating a man would be like at seventeen? And he's like,
Speaker 1: let me tell you so, yeah, and that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: And that's how I would be thinking that that in
Speaker 1: my head and he, you know, all I could say
Speaker 1: to myself is, well, he's a grown man. He would
Speaker 1: know better than I would, you know what I mean. Now,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting point that that you both just brought up,
Speaker 1: just the idea that you're young, you don't know what
Speaker 1: love is supposed to look like, and a lot of
Speaker 1: us haven't seen very good examples of it in the
Speaker 1: first place, you know. But but I think about just thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to you, and I'm just thinking about myself,
Speaker 1: because I did have a perfectly beautiful example in front
Speaker 1: of me that I lived with every day. But somehow
Speaker 1: I got my head that being beat was a sign
Speaker 1: of love and the amount of love that he had
Speaker 1: for me, Like he wouldn't bother to beat me if
Speaker 1: he didn't love me, Like, I don't know how how
Speaker 1: I ever got that concept in my head? What do
Speaker 1: you think, Dr rcutt? Could we get a quick therapy
Speaker 1: session for Gammy? Everything? That the whole thing? And I'm
Speaker 1: glad you brought that up, because one person's experience is
Speaker 1: not everybody's. Right. I have a great relationship with my father,
Speaker 1: but how did this happen? Right? I had a great
Speaker 1: role model with a male role model in my house.
Speaker 1: And yet and still um and because we're not immune,
Speaker 1: we know, you know, there but for the grace of
Speaker 1: God go I and we have there's something called um
Speaker 1: just world fallacy where and the one side of it
Speaker 1: is good things happen to good people. But put that
Speaker 1: on its head, Right, if something bad happens to you,
Speaker 1: what did you do? That's her fault? Right, and so
Speaker 1: and so we have to be careful, right. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's what a lot of people like, like the
Speaker 1: negative comments that I'm seeing about the docuseries, it's always
Speaker 1: kind of that mindset of like, oh, if something that
Speaker 1: bad happened, then she must have done something to make
Speaker 1: that come upon her, Like no one in their head
Speaker 1: is like like I'm gonna get Like no one's thinking
Speaker 1: they're gonna get abused. Was walking through that door exactly, Lisa.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, did you feel like someone was
Speaker 1: ever gonna come and save you? Or do you feel
Speaker 1: like everyone just let you down? Were you waiting for that?
Speaker 1: One of the major questions I had when I was
Speaker 1: a child. I know, I used to always say why
Speaker 1: didn't they want me? My parents that? Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes you feel like you're not worth you know, And
Speaker 1: I talked to him about that. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: at times he feeled that void for you made you
Speaker 1: feel really worthy and feeling like you weren't worthy and
Speaker 1: you were unwanted that I have got this guy who
Speaker 1: wants me. It was misguided, but you know I thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, But that's what it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did, you know, because I didn't know to not
Speaker 1: have any mail role models. Yeah, you know, you just
Speaker 1: how would you know what the love of a man
Speaker 1: is supposed to be like? You know? So you know
Speaker 1: I was really pushing for it. I wanted it, you know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I think that's something that is at
Speaker 1: one point that I that I did miss in my
Speaker 1: thinking of this and how naive we can be as
Speaker 1: young women and now you've got an adult who's going
Speaker 1: to groom groom your understanding of love from your professional
Speaker 1: no point of view. Do you feel as though that
Speaker 1: people who are abused abused. There are a large majority
Speaker 1: of people that have experiences of sexual abuse that do
Speaker 1: not go on to abuse others. Right, I'd be one,
Speaker 1: But there are some that do. The idea of power
Speaker 1: and control getting twisted up with sex for children, and
Speaker 1: so a way that that can happen is it's not
Speaker 1: uncommon for a child to be told that the child
Speaker 1: seduced the adult. Um, it's not uncommon for the child
Speaker 1: to be told, well, you know you liked it because
Speaker 1: of the child had an orgasm, which is an involuntary
Speaker 1: physical response with so especially with boys, right, And so
Speaker 1: then then it becomes well, if this is how sex
Speaker 1: is as an adult, I want to be the other guy.
Speaker 1: I want to be the other person, right, And so
Speaker 1: I'm not speaking for everyone's experience, but that's certain one
Speaker 1: one path certainly one pathway because I have to be
Speaker 1: honest and not to justify anything that has happened, but
Speaker 1: the fact that he had experienced sexual abuse from a
Speaker 1: family member and really shed light on possibly how something
Speaker 1: like this could manifest and happened. And I do believe
Speaker 1: that as a community, these conversations are so important to
Speaker 1: have just to make it okay to just talk, because
Speaker 1: I feel like so many people are suffering in silence
Speaker 1: and are suffering manifests that in the black community, where
Speaker 1: people don't want to seek professional help. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: if you go to see a psychologist, then you're crazy.
Speaker 1: We all made a lot of really great points, and
Speaker 1: also it's really important to acknowledge that we use the
Speaker 1: term adultification right. What we do with girls is that
Speaker 1: when they start developing, we treat them as if they're adults.
Speaker 1: And when you add race on top of that, what
Speaker 1: we know is that we see adolescence and children as
Speaker 1: less innocent Black adolescence for boys it starts at ten,
Speaker 1: but for black girls it starts at five. Then their
Speaker 1: white counterparts. And so when you're thinking about people saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought, well, they're grown, so they know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. You know, they're in the studio. You
Speaker 1: know she's standing there seeming like she likes it. We
Speaker 1: as a society are acting like these girls are willing, right,
Speaker 1: and we have to own that. We have to recognize
Speaker 1: how we're complicit, right, And it's that because if just
Speaker 1: because we're black women at this table doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: that doesn't seep into our psyches and the way. So
Speaker 1: we have to we really have to keep talking about it.
Speaker 1: I see how that happened with Aaliyah exactly. You know,
Speaker 1: even I remember you would hear whispers and stuff, but
Speaker 1: you know, you let you go. Oh, you know, she's
Speaker 1: making a hit songs, she must be Okay, just explain
Speaker 1: to me what that is. Like, I'm trying to understand
Speaker 1: why is that? Have you figured that out? The adult
Speaker 1: like at five? Just seeing them as more responsible, less innocent,
Speaker 1: more responsible for themselves than their white counterparts. So overall
Speaker 1: black women have seen is more responsible and less innocent.
Speaker 1: And you see that with um judge is not using
Speaker 1: their discretion when they're sentencing. You see that with police
Speaker 1: officer resource officers and schools disciplining black girls, and you
Speaker 1: just see it. You know, I think the answer isn't simple,
Speaker 1: but it is historic. I feel it's systematic as well,
Speaker 1: like systematic and historic, like like that mixture of sexism
Speaker 1: and racism, like combining and becoming this monster. That's just
Speaker 1: like that's becoming dehumanizing. And that's and that's how you
Speaker 1: can go for years and see black girls getting abused
Speaker 1: and see black girls being victimized and not really do
Speaker 1: anything about it or say like, oh, that's terrible, right,
Speaker 1: it's because you've deemed them now as less than I
Speaker 1: never thought about it like that. I want to thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to thank both of you for coming, and
Speaker 1: I thank you for listening. And let me ask you,
Speaker 1: what is something that you want people to know about
Speaker 1: your mother? She's not who they think she is. She's
Speaker 1: a helper, she's a mom, she's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And people just aggravating what they say and they don't
Speaker 1: know anything, like oh she's a gold digger, Oh what
Speaker 1: money do we have? Like it's very difficult to heal
Speaker 1: in the spotlight and in front of people. And that's
Speaker 1: why you know, um, you know, every last one of
Speaker 1: you that that had the just the courage. It taught
Speaker 1: me so much. It made me have to look at myself.
Speaker 1: Willow and I had some real conversations. My mother and
Speaker 1: I had some real conversations. Everybody's having real conversations because
Speaker 1: of the courage that you guys have had, you know,
Speaker 1: so it's important because I do believe culturally in our community,
Speaker 1: we got some things to handle, all right, There's so
Speaker 1: much more to talk about, so much. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: We could do it, like I was, like, we can
Speaker 1: do five more. Hey, R T T family, Join our
Speaker 1: Red Table Talk group on Facebook and become part of
Speaker 1: the conversation. To join the Red Table Talk family and
Speaker 1: become a part of the conversation. Follow us at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: this episode of Red Table Talk podcast, produced by Facebook Watch,
Speaker 1: Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.