Reshona Landfair walks into her Chicago high school job every morning to the sound of R. Kelly music blasting from loudspeakers. The cruel irony isn’t lost on her. For 25 years, she’s been known as Jane Doe. The 14-year-old girl in Kelly’s child abuse tape.

Now 41, Landfair is finally reclaiming her name and story with her memoir Who’s Watching Shorty? Reclaiming Myself from the Shame of R. Kelly’s Abuse, released this week.

“It’s everywhere I go,” Landfair tells Rolling Stone about hearing Kelly’s music. “I work in a high school, and when I walk into work every morning, R. Kelly is playing on a loudspeaker before I get my day started.”

The Chicago native has spent decades hiding behind shortened names and whispered conversations. She’d introduce herself as “Chon” to avoid recognition. But that changed when she decided to testify at Kelly’s 2022 federal trial.

“I was afraid to say my own name and be who I really was to work, to friends,” Landfair explained. “But I’m here today as Reshona.”

Her 240-page memoir doesn’t hold back. Landfair describes how Kelly first groomed her family, offering her father steady work as a studio musician.

He appeared at family dinners, took them to expensive restaurants, and positioned himself as a godfather figure. The manipulation started with secret phone calls when Landfair was 12.

R. Kelly insisted she call him “Daddy” during private moments. By 14, she was trapped in what she calls a “brainwashing” cycle of abuse, control, and isolation.

“Robert knowingly victimized me as a child,” Landfair writes in her book. “I was brainwashed by Robert and a sex slave. Robert made me suicidal as a young adult.”

The infamous tape that launched Kelly’s first criminal case showed Landfair at 14, her mind “soupy” from the champagne Kelly fed her. She reveals she was still a virgin during the filming.

When Kelly was arrested in 2002, Landfair’s nightmare deepened. He kept her under house arrest conditions, bouncing her between tour buses, recording studios, and cramped office spaces. She slept on chiropractor tables and in closets while Kelly’s team delivered meals with coded knocks.

“Everyone knew how he operated,” Landfair told Rolling Stone. “You might see me in a different space, but I’m living in the garage where the gym is built at a point.”

The 2008 trial haunts her most. Kelly’s lawyers weaponized her absence while she waited on his tour bus just 200 feet from the courthouse. Despite testimony from over a dozen witnesses identifying her, jurors cited her refusal to testify as a major factor in Kelly’s acquittal.

“I must live with the choices my parents and I made, and with Robert’s abuse of other women and girls who met him after he was acquitted,” she writes.

Landfair escaped Kelly’s control by age 26, but the trauma followed her everywhere. She shortened her name, avoided relationships, and lived in constant fear of recognition. By 2022, she was ready to face Kelly in court. When she testified, he gave her “a nasty look” that confirmed her decision.

“When he gave me that look, it was confirmation that I was sitting in the right place,” she recalled

Chicago remains Kelly’s unchecked playground even after his conviction. His music plays in Lyft rides, restaurants, and yes, her workplace. The city that produced him still embraces his catalog despite two federal convictions.

“I can’t take away a fan’s memory of what they felt when that song came out,” Landfair says about Kelly’s continued airplay. “The music itself is his gift. That’s the good part of him.”

She’s considering leaving Chicago but refuses to let Kelly claim anything else in her life. “I’m still here,” she says. “I still walk with my head held high.”

Landfair now works at a school-based health center and runs Project Refine, a mentorship program for young women. Her memoir represents the final step in reclaiming her identity from Kelly’s shadow.

Landfair’s book hits shelves as Kelly serves concurrent 20 and 30-year sentences at a federal facility in North Carolina.

The memoir officially releases on February 3, 2026 and is published by Legacy Lit, with a foreword by music executive and abuse survivor Drew Dixon.