'I'm no hostage!' 21-year-old whose family claims she is being held against her will by R. Kelly

A 21-year-old woman whose family made sensational claims that she was being held against her will by R&B singer R. Kelly spoke out on Monday night to insist she is safe and well.


Jocelyn Savage came forward after watching her mother, father and sister hold a press conference earlier on Monday during which they claimed she was being held by Kelly at a home in Atlanta.

They said she was one of many young women who the 50-year-old singer had targeted in recent years and that they hadn't spoken to her for months.

Dismissing their claims that she had been 'brainwashed' by Kelly - who has been plagued by accusations of child sex abuse in the past - Savage told TMZ that she was 'in a happy place'.


I'm 21, I'm about to be 22 in a few days and I just mainly want to say that I am in a happy place with my life and I'm not being brainwashed or anything like that.

'It just came to a point where it definitely has got out of hand. I'm totally fine. I'm happy where I'm at and everything is OK with me.'

Asked if she was being held involuntarily, she said: 'Oh no, nothing like that. I've never felt like a hostage or anything like that.'

Addressing her parents' concern, she said: 'I don't really know what's going on with that,' she said of their fears on Monday. 'I'm very heartbroken over what's going on with this situation because it's getting to a point where it's getting too much.

'It's just not right.'

Though she insisted she was 'fine', she refused to answer when asked if she was free to come and go from the house.

She also refused to answer when asked if she was still in Atlanta, Georgia.

Savage's parents took part in an interview with BuzzFeed on Monday which aired worrying allegations that Kelly had been holding a handful of young women in cult like conditions and effectively treating them as his sexual slaves for years.

Some former members of his entourage vouched for their concern. Three separate women said they were all forced to subscribe to his rules.

They said they were told when to eat, bathe, sleep and had to perform sexual acts on one another which the singer then recorded.






Savage's mother recalled painstakingly how she was present when her daughter met the singer as an aspiring musician herself after being invited backstage to a concert in 2015.

It's not clear exactly when Jocelyn went to live with Kelly but her family say they have not seen her since December last year.  'It was as if she was brainwashed. [She] looked like a prisoner — it was horrible,' her mother said.

The mother-of-three boasted about meeting the star again in January 2016. On Facebook, she posed with Jocelyn and the star along with one other women, telling friends how they were 'in the studio'.

In her BuzzFeed interview, she said she thought it would be 'fine' for her daughter to spend time with the star if she was there to watch over her.




Jocelyn's father Timothy believes she is suffering Stockholm Syndrome, a condition which sees hostages grow to love their captors.