Benzino and his daughter Coi Leray have been at odds with each other for a while. It, however, appears the pair are far from having a reconciliation after the 58-year-old recently questioned the age at which his daughter lost her virginity. Leray has distanced herself from him over voicing his support for R. Kelly.
Per Complex, Benzino touched on the topic during an interview on The Famous & Wealthy Podcast. The rapper and record producer in a different interview had said Kelly deserved a second chance, prompting his daughter to share details about their relationship status in a May 1 post on X (formerly Twitter).
“I want everybody to know I want nothing to do with anything my father has going on,” Leray, 27, wrote. “I haven’t spoken to him in over a year and I don’t condone or respect any of them interviews he got going on. I don’t respect his decisions and I really want nothing to do with him please dont [sic] even think of me when you see him.”
Face2Face Africa in 2023 reported that Kelly had been handed a one-year prison sentence in addition to a 30-year racketeering sentence he is already serving. The disgraced singer in 2022 was sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex trafficking and racketeering following a trial in New York. He was subsequently convicted in a second federal trial in Chicago on charges relating to indecent images of children and child enticement, Sky News reported.
Kelly has currently been sentenced to 20 years in that case but 19 will be served at the same time as the New York sentence. Kelly had been accused of grooming and sexually abusing women and underage girls. The charges included one count of racketeering and eight counts of illegally transporting people across state lines for the purpose of sex. Nine women and two men appeared in court to testify against the singer, claiming that he sexually abused them.
But Benzino in the recent interview touched on the disgraced singer’s conviction again and questioned why his daughter, who is also a rapper, had taken issue with him voicing his support for Kelly.
“She made a comment about the R. Kelly situation and said that she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me because of the R. Kelly thing,” Benzino said. “But then, four months ago, she was on the Math Hoffa show…he asked her ‘Hey, when did you lose your virginity?’ She said ’14.'”
“I didn’t know, so I’m like, here you are condemning me for saying what I’m saying which is a grown folks conversation, which I never mentioned you [and] you really shouldn’t even involve yourself because this was a conversation that I’m having,” the 58-year-old added.
“But since you did involve yourself, which is what you do, how can you say that when you just said that you lost your virginity at 14? So is the guy that you lost your virginity at 14 with, is he a pedophile?”
Benzino’s comments were, however, met with backlash on social media, with some users criticizing his parenting. “So basically he’s slut shaming his own daughter to dickride a pedophile?! ELECTRIC CHAIR,” a user wrote.
“He always using that poor girl as a chance to get a headline… go sit down, no neck,” another user said. A different user also wrote, “Wouldnt that be a result of his parenting…”
“I would hate if he was my dad,” a user said. “This steroid neck Ni**a is the worst type of father Omg,” another user wrote.