Russell Simmons and his ex-wife, Kimora Lee Simmons – who share two adult children together – celebrated Father’s Day in a not-so-civil way. It all started when one of their daughters, 23-year-old Ming Lee Simmons, took to Instagram to honor her mother, instead of her father, on Father’s Day (June 18).
Ming Lee shared a photo of her and her mother in an Instagram Story that read, “Happy Father’s Day” – snubbing Russell from the photo altogether. This apparently didn’t sit right with her father, who took to Twitter the following day (June 19) and shared several cryptic messages in an effort to defend himself.
“Stop telling fathers they should have fought harder to see their children & start asking mothers why he had to fight at all,” he wrote in one tweet. In another, he shared a quote that read, “The father you have is the perfect father for the evolution of your soul and the lessons that you needed to learn in this lifetime.”
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Things started to escalate when Russell Simmons’ younger daughter, Aoki Lee Simmons, chimed in – accusing her father of treating her poorly and causing a great deal of emotional stress for years. She went on to share text messages and screen recordings of her father’s alleged abuse, rants, and tantrums.
“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,” she wrote – adding she believes he might be suffering from a mental illness.
That’s when Mama Bear got involved. She took to her own Instagram Story and started off by apologizing to her followers for having to do this. She went on to accuse her husband of threatening her daughters’ lives before vowing they ‘won’t be bullied threatened or afraid’ – and the criticism didn’t even stop there.
“Leave my kids alone. 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,” she wrote on her Story. “Your threats and lies and intimidation maneuvers and tactics are sad. Stop it please.”
Kimora Lee Simmons is Putting Her Foot Down
To conclude her rant, Kimora Lee Simmons shared one last message regarding her ex-husband. “No one should live like this. No one’s child. This is abuse. Not ok. The threats. Not ok. The fear-mongering. Not ok,” she wrote on Instagram. She, nor her two daughters, have said anything about their father since.
On June 19, Russell Simmons posted an Instagram photo of his two daughters and shared a message that described what his family is going through right now as ‘growing pains.’ He admitted to ‘growing through adversity and struggle’ before ‘deeply’ apologizing for ‘being frustrated and yelling’ at them.
“Reach back to old lessons and remember to remember “smile and breathe” ❤️ “smile and breathe” . . . you are the watchers of this world . . . so let go . . . be at ease . . . God is driving and he is working on you,” he wrote. “but know this . . . there are no conditions . . . for sure i love you guys more than i love myself.”
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Russell Simmons and Kimora Lee Simmons met one another in 1992 and got married on December 20, 1998. The couple welcomed their first daughter, Ming, on January 21, 2000 and their second daughter, Aoki, on August 16, 2002. Russell and Kimora split in 2006 and finalized their divorce two years later.