Kimora Lee Simmons and daughters call out Russell Simmons after years of mistreatment

While Kimora Lee Simmons may be known best as the founder of the early 2000s clothing brand Baby Phat, she has also been in the headlines for her relationships.

 The former model Kimora was married to hip-hop mogul and Def Jam Records exec Russell Simmons from 1998 to 2009, during which she welcomed two daughters with him, Ming and Aoki, who is also a model. 

At the time, the couple cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for their split, according to TMZ. But now Kimora is spilling the tea and sharing all the red flags about her ex husband, and Ming and Aoki are backing her up. She took to Instagram to dish, claiming years of mistreatment, grooming, and verbal abuse.

On Monday, it was Aoki who first started dropping receipts into her Instagram Stories, seemingly of text message exchanges between her and her father Russell, where she says he’s “been awful to me for years” and called Kimora a “piece of [s]hit,” accusing her of stealing money from him. Subsequent text images show Aoki claiming that her father only calls her just to rant and curse about his legal problems. She shared one muted recording of a FaceTime call in which Russell can clearly be seen raging over the phone, and he appears enraged.

Aoki’s text overlay read, “"This is not someone who will accept help. This is just one screen recording sorry I don’t always remember to press 'record' when he calls my friends, my boyfriend, anyone, to get a chance to threaten and curse and go crazy."

Kimora then took to her IG Stories to post a series of statements, saying that her ex has been “threatening” their children.

"I'm so sorry to have to do this," she wrote. "But this man has been threatening my kids' lives. I'm hearing so much more now. We won't be bullied, threatened or afraid."

"Leave my kids alone," she continued. "This narrative of attacking the only caregiver, the only parent in the home with the kids, the mom, AND the kids for one's own shortcomings and embarrassments is dead. Dead. Dead."

"The same abusive ish," she wrote. "This is how you manouver [sic] with the women all around you. Your threats and lies and intimidation manouvers [sic] and tactics are sad. Stop it please. Your own flesh and blood? Enough is enough."

The abuse she is referencing is in relation to years of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations levied against Russell. Eighteen women have accused Russell of sexual assault, which he denies. In 2020, the HBO Max documentary “On the Record,” spoke with multiple women who accused him of misconduct.

The receipts didn’t end there. Kimora then launched an Instagram Live broadcast, which she has since deleted (but this being the internet, it lives on forever in recordings), where she revealed, among other things, that Russell groomed her from the age of 15 or 16. She also spoke in detail, while visibly upset and crying, that Russell is broke and she has used her “many millions” to help bail him out many times. She claims that Russell does not financially support their children and didn’t even come to their recent university graduation ceremonies.

Though both said that they would amicably raise their children together, Russell sued Kimora for fraud in 2021, accusing his former wife — and her husband Tim Leissner — of transferring nearly 4 million shares from their energy drink company to help pay off Leissner's legal fees. Kimora counter sued and was awarded over $100,000 to cover her legal fees, which Russell was compelled to pay within 30 days. 

Naturally, all of this public drama has Twitter ablaze.