Kimora Lee is reflecting on the early stages of her relationship with Russell Simmons and how Tyra Banks tried to stop her from dealing with the media mogul at only 16 years old!
In her new Lifetime documentary Kimora Lee: On Her Own, Kimora recalls meeting Russell as a teenager. She says Russell would often pop up at her fashion shows, make his way backstage, and eventually begin sending her large flower arrangements.
“When I was doing the fashion shows, he would always be front row at the end, like standing up and so loudly clapping and cheering and doing all of these commotions.”
She added, “I definitely was like, ‘Who is the weird guy at the end of the runway?’ And then he would come backstage, and that’s weird. ‘You let these men come backstage — what are you doing? We’re changing.’ But that’s how it was. I was 16 years old when I met that man. He was 18 years older than me.”
Kimora revealed that prior to her giving Russell any attention, Tyra had attempted to warn her. “I remember Tyra kept me in her apartment through the weekend trying to avoid me going home and checking my voicemail.” She also admitted to misreading Tyra’s intentions initially “I felt a little bit like she was hating for sure, just because she was getting in my way and getting on my nerves.”
“I’m sure he had already tried to date her and had gone through the whole thing with her and probably so many other girls. I’m sure this was a ritual.”
Kimora and Russell officially tied the knot in the late 90s and went on to have two children together; Ming Lee and Aoki with Tyra as their godmother.
The couple split 2006 and finalized their divorce in 2009 after eight years of marriage. Kimora has issued claims that Russell was verbally abusive to her throughout much of their time together.
“I didn’t even realize it was abusive until I started putting the pieces together,” Lee tells PEOPLE. “I was living in a time when those things were very normal, financial abuse or emotional abuse or whatever.”
+ There are no comments
Add yours