Russell Simmons’ family drama spilled online over Father’s Day weekend, revealing that he, ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons and daughter Aoki Lee Simmons have verbal abuse issues.
Aoki, 20, took to Instagram on June 18 to make shocking accusations about her father. The mogul’s daughter claims Russell is “not well,” and she says Russell tried to cut her off financially and sabotage her fashion career.
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“My father is not well, for years, he needs help and won’t accept that he refuses to acknowledge he is not himself. He has threatened and bullied my sister, my grandma, he has harassed my grandma in the middle of the night in poor health, send a man to my sisters apartment at 2 a.m. to scare her. He lashes out at ANYONE who does not say ‘oh Russell everything is fine.’ Well it’s not fine. If “I never get a fashion job again” like he threatens, I’ll be a lawyer I guess and work in criminal Justice. Sure I love my job but if he takes it away from me I won’t die. You don’t threaten my sister and grandma and mother and say ‘who’s gonna believe you I’m Russell Simmons nobody thinks I’m crazy” well he is.,” Aoki said.
Some of the evidence Aoki presented was self-retracted and deleted, one of which is the Def Jam pioneer screaming at Aoki in a video call, granted, it was muted and the conversation is hard to make out.
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Regardless the verbal abuse is presented as an example of his mean streak.
She also claims he made similar threats to her mother and sister, Ming Lee Simmons –who initial kicked off the argument by wishing her mother a happy Father’s Day – which prompted Russell to post subliminal shots at his daughters and Kimora, following Aoki’s lead, to release her truth about Russell’s abusive side.
According to Kimora, who was married to Russell from 1998 to 2009, she called her ex-husband a bully to her and her children.
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On Juneteenth, Kimora went live on Instagram to explain how Russell’s popularity not only shielded him from accountability for his conduct, but also how he lied about their relationship on social media despite her blocking him. For instance, he might send himself flowers “from” her to post on Instagram.
Russell is also facing an existing accusation of him sexually assualting a young employee in the 1990s.
“On the Record” is an HBO documentary that follows ex-Def Jam executive Drew Dixon, one of Simmons’ accusers, as she makes the difficult decision to come forward with sexual assault charges in The New York Times in late 2017. In the Times report, she claims that Simmons, her then-boss at Def Jam Recordings, raped her in his Manhattan apartment when she was 24 years old in 1995.
