Tag: russell simmons
Oprah says Russell Simmons ‘attempted to pressure’ her out of producing sex assault documentary
Russell Simmons tried to force Oprah Winfrey out of working on the documentary about his sexual assault allegations but it wasn’t his efforts that caused her to ditch the project, the television icon has revealed.
Winfrey announced last week she was stepping away from the “On the Record” project as its executive producer, nearly one month after receiving backlash from Simmons. She also shared that it will no longer air on Apple TV+.
Now, in a new statement to Fox News, Winfrey revealed what exactly was going on behind the scenes and detailed Simmons’ attempts to stop her involvement.
“He did reach out multiple times and attempted to pressure me,” Winfrey told Fox News through a spokesperson on Saturday.
The spokesperson added that Winfrey’s decision to separate herself from the documentary was not due to Simmons’ incessant attempts. Instead, Winfrey found inconsistencies in the reporting for the “On the Record” documentary, specifically with the story coming from one of the music producer’s accusers, Drew Dixon.
Despite her exit, Winfrey’s spokesperson confirmed the media mogul believes Dixon as well as the other women who come forward in the film.
“First and foremost, she believes all of the women,” the spokesperson told Fox News.
The spokesperson added that Winfrey felt the film did not need to be rushed to the Sundance Film Festival, scheduled to premiere on Jan. 25.
Winfrey announced her decision to step down as the documentary’s executive producer in a statement to Fox News last week.
“I have decided that I will no longer be executive producer on the untitled Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering documentary and it will not air on Apple TV+,” Winfrey shared in a statement. “First and foremost, I want it to be known that I unequivocally believe and support the women. Their stories deserve to be told and heard. In my opinion, there is more work to be done on the film to illuminate the full scope of what the victims endured, and it has become clear that the filmmakers and I are not aligned in that creative vision.
“Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering are talented filmmakers. I have great respect for their mission but given the filmmakers’ desire to premiere the film at the Sundance Film Festival before I believe it is complete, I feel it’s best to step aside. I will be working with Time’s Up to support the victims and those impacted by abuse and sexual harassment.”
Dixon is one of the multiple women who made sexual assault allegations against Simmons, 62. The famed record executive was accused of rape by at least three women in 2017 and adamantly denied the allegations.
Simmons penned his own message to Winfrey last month maintaining his innocence, which he reposted again following the news of Oprah’s exit.
“Dearest OPRAH, you have been a shining light to my family and my community,” he wrote. “It’s so troubling that you choose to single me out in your recent documentry [sic]. I have already admitted to being a playboy (more appropriately titled today ‘womanizer’) sleeping with and putting myself in more compromising situations than almost any man I know. … So many that some could reinterpret or reimagine a different recollection of the same experiences.”
“I have taken and passed nine 3-hour lie detector tests,” he added. “These stories are UNUSABLE.”
Rapper 50 Cent also previously called out Winfrey via his social media accounts.
“I don’t understand why Oprah is going after black men,” 50 Cent, real name Curtis Jackson, wrote on social media. “No Harvey Weinstein, No Epstein, just Micheal [sic] jackson and Russell Simmons this s–t is sad.”
In a joint statement to Fox News, Simmons’ silence-breakers and survivors said: “We are more than victims of rape. We are Black women. We are mothers, daughters, sisters and friends insisting on our right to live and work free from sexual violence and abuse. We will not back down, and we will not be silenced. We are not afraid. When we raised our anguished voices to say, ‘No! Stop! Don’t’ to Russell Simmons, he ignored us.”
Article via Fox
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Kelly Cutrone: Russell Simmons tried to rape me
Furious about Russell Simmons denying rape allegations against him, Kelly Cutrone has come forward to say that Simmons attempted to rape her in 1991.
Cutrone, who founded fashion PR powerhouse People’s Revolution and has starred in MTV’s “The Hills” and “America’s Next Top Model,” says she was incensed on Thursday to learn that Simmons was trying to start a #NotMe movement to deny sexual assault accusations that are made as part of the #MeToo movement. She said, “The #NotMe thing? I’m going to do a #YeahYou. F–k you.”
Simmons has been accused of sexual misconduct — including rape — by some 12 women. Although he has stepped down from his companies, including RUSH Communications, he strenuously denies any non-consensual sex.
Cutrone told Page Six that in 1991, when she was 26, she bumped into Simmons — whom she knew as a casual acquaintance — at a party and walked with him to another party. She tells us that he invited her to his apartment, and when she declined, the mogul said he needed to drop in at a friend’s house. Cutrone says she agreed to go, but she believes he led her to his own apartment instead.
“He pushed me into his apartment and then he threw me down on the floor and literally tried to grab … take my clothes off of me,” Cutrone told us, “And I started kicking him really, really hard, screaming, telling him to get the f–k off of me. And that I would have him killed if he ever f–king laid a hand on me.” She added, “I actually think I told him I would call Page Six! I was a publicist! I think I told him I would call Page Six and have him murdered.”
A friend of Cutrone’s, Tatijana Shoan, tells Page Six that she vividly remembers Cutrone telling her ex-husband Ronnie Cutrone — whom Shoan was dating — about Simmons attacking her.
Cutrone told us that after the alleged ordeal, she ran out of the apartment. “[Simmons] was just really shaken up and I f–king split. I remember running out the door and getting a cab and all I remember was that I got in a cab and I remember a feeling — which was so crazy — of, ‘Oh my god. Somebody just tried to rape me. What do I do?’ And then the energy of going to the police and pressing charges against him was overwhelming to me.”
She added, “Then what would happen afterward — and this would happen years afterward — I’d be at a table and Russell f–king Simmons would come up to the table and then people would be like, ‘Kelly, do you know Russell?,’ and I’d be like, ‘Yes, I know Russell — he tried to rape me.’”
Cutrone says she’s was horrified by Simmons’ #NotMe idea, which he unveiled on Instagram on Thursday saying, “My intention is not to diminish the #MeToo movement in anyway, but instead hold my accusers accountable.” Cutrone told us, “It’s a call to every man who wants the right to abuse women to continue.”
“All these guys [who have been accused of rape, including Simmons and Harvey Weinstein] have been doing is, like, go, like, ‘Hey, I’m really, really sorry and I’m going to step away from my business,’” said Cutrone, “But you know what, a lot of these women have to go to work everyday because they have to pay bills and they haven’t made $100 million.” Of Simmons — an avid yogi — she added, “I hope he chokes on his om pendant.”
Simmons’ lawyer provided a statement to Page Six which didn’t address Cutrone’s claims, but referred to the mass of allegations against him: “I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual.”
He added that he has “enormous respect for the women’s movement worldwide and their struggle for respect, dignity, equality and power” and said he was “devastated by any reason I may have given to anyone to say or think of me in the ways that are currently being described.”
The statement went on: “In recent weeks, some former business, creative and romantic partners have aired grievances as claims I categorically reject. In some of these instances, financial motives and direct contradictory witness testimony has been supplied to the media, which has been completely left out of stories. In the last few days, one woman attempted to extort me for $500,000 only to recant her ridiculous claim.”
He said, “I have already apologized for the instances of thoughtlessness in my consensual relations. I have separated myself from my businesses and charities in order to not become a distraction.”
Music Mogul Russell Simmons Is Accused of Rape by 3 Women
Mr. Simmons, a powerful gatekeeper in the entertainment and media worlds, damaged careers and
self-confidence with his pattern of sexual assault and harassment, the women say.
In 1995, Drew Dixon was working her dream job as an executive at Def Jam Recordings, helping to oversee a chart-topping album and a ubiquitous single by Method Man and Mary J. Blige. But as her star rose, Ms. Dixon, then 24, was spiraling into depression, she said, because of prolonged and aggressive sexual harassment by her direct supervisor, Russell Simmons, the rap mogul and co-founder of the label.
On work calls, he would talk graphically about how she aroused him. At a staff meeting, he asked her to sit on his lap. He regularly exposed his erect penis to her. Late that year, Mr. Simmons raped her in his downtown Manhattan apartment, Ms. Dixon said. She quit Def Jam soon after.
“I was broken,” she said.
In recent interviews, four women spoke on the record about a pattern of violent sexual behavior by Mr. Simmons, disclosing incidents from 1988 to 2014. Three of the women say that he raped them.
In each case, numerous friends and associates said they were told of the incidents at the time. The women said they were inspired to come forward in the aftermath of the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, as victims’ stories have been newly elevated and more often believed.
Told in detail about the rape accusations and other misconduct, Mr. Simmons, 60, said in a statement: “I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual.”
He added: “I have enormous respect for the women’s movement worldwide and their struggle for respect, dignity, equality and power.”
[Read Russell Simmons’s Complete Statement]
Last month, Mr. Simmons — a forefather of hip-hop who went on to great success in fashion, media and more — apologized for being “thoughtless and insensitive” and announced he was stepping down from his companies after the screenwriter Jenny Lumet became the second woman to publicly accuse him of sexual assault at the time.
“I have re-dedicated myself to spiritual learning, healing and working on behalf of the communities to which I have devoted my life,” he said in his statement on Wednesday. “I have accepted that I can and should get dirt on my sleeves if it means witnessing the birth of a new consciousness about women.
“What I will not accept is responsibility for what I have not done. I have conducted my life with a message of peace and love. Although I have been candid about how I have lived in books and interviews detailing my flaws, I will relentlessly fight against any untruthful character assassination that paints me as a man of violence.”
The most powerful men and companies in popular music have thus far gone largely unscathed in the national reckoning over sexual abuse. A major reason: Sex and debauchery are built into the music industry, where the boundaries between work and play blur in late nights at clubs and studios, and many women have scant power or incentive to complain about being mistreated.
These women still face powerful industry gatekeepers like Mr. Simmons, whose pedigree and ability to make or break careers allowed his abusive behavior to go unchallenged for decades, his accusers contend. “Russell was like the king of hip-hop,” Ms. Dixon said.
She said she was later harassed by another boss, L.A. Reid, the music legend known for his work with TLC and Mariah Carey, driving her from a business where women had little autonomy. In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Reid did not address the specific claims but apologized if his words were “misinterpreted.”
Black women, especially, felt powerless against Mr. Simmons and his cohort in the small world of urban music, with several saying that misconduct against them could go unchecked because their place in the industry was so tenuous. They feared being ostracized, or worse.
Three of the women now accusing Mr. Simmons were pursuing careers in the music industry that they said were disrupted or derailed in part by their experiences with him.
“I didn’t sing for almost a year,” said Tina Baker, a performer who said Mr. Simmons raped her in the early ’90s, when he was her manager. “The second he agreed to work with me, my budget increased, the label was paying more attention to me,” Ms. Baker recalled. But after the assault, she said, “I went into oblivion.”
‘He Pushed Me on the Bed’
First known as a hyperactive party promoter turned manager from Queens who helped boost Run-DMC, Mr. Simmons was among the first to view hip-hop as a big business and cultural force. In 1983, with the producer Rick Rubin, he made Def Jam the defining rap label of its era, with hits by the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Public Enemy.
Even after Mr. Simmons sold his remaining stake in Def Jam for a reported $100 million in 1999, he served as an ambassador for hip-hop through comedy (“Def Comedy Jam”), clothing (Phat Farm) and activism. Today, his company Rush Communications oversees an array of businesses and nonprofits, including the politically minded media company Global Grind.
In 1987, Toni Sallie, a music journalist for the trade magazine Black Radio Exclusive, met Mr. Simmons while on assignment. She found him to be a charming, if gruff, playboy. They ended up going on a few dates before Ms. Sallie, then 28, decided they were not a match.
But the two remained cordial, Ms. Sallie said, and in the fall of 1988, Mr. Simmons invited her to his Manhattan apartment for a party he said he was hosting for his girlfriend. When Ms. Sallie arrived, the place was empty except for Mr. Simmons, she recalled. Saying he wanted to show her the apartment, Mr. Simmons led her to his bedroom.
“He pushed me on the bed and jumped on top of me, and physically attacked me,” she said. “We were fighting. I said no.” He raped her, she said. Two friends, Sheila Brody and Arlene Hirschkowitz, and a colleague confirmed that Ms. Sallie told them about the assault around the time it happened.
Through his lawyer, Brad D. Rose, Mr. Simmons acknowledged that he dated Ms. Sallie but denied any nonconsensual sex.
Ms. Sallie said she was too afraid to report the assault: “If I went to the police, I didn’t know how that would turn out.”
She also worried about her burgeoning career. “You have to understand, I was very much in a man’s game,” Ms. Sallie said. “Black women were just starting to break into the field.”
About a year later, at a music conference in South Florida, Ms. Sallie, who was then working for Warner Bros. Records, said she encountered Mr. Simmons in a hotel lobby. When he tried to lead her to a dark beach, she resisted and he attacked her, grabbing her by the hair, she said, and even chasing her into the women’s restroom before she escaped to her room, where she barricaded the door. (“At no time did Mr. Simmons conduct himself inappropriately,” Mr. Rose said.)
To this day, Ms. Sallie said, “I don’t feel comfortable in a room full of men.”
Music executives she told about the hotel incident brushed it off, she added. “I felt alone for 29 years,” she said, “like nobody would listen to me.”
Following the reports of alleged misconduct by Mr. Simmons in November, Ms. Sallie said she contacted the Manhattan district attorney’s office to accuse him.
A law enforcement official confirmed that a woman contacted the district attorney’s office to report an incident from 1988 and added that a different anonymous woman had recently reported an incident from 1991. The official said the incidents had occurred so long ago that the statute of limitations had lapsed and the crimes had not been prosecuted. There are no details about the woman from the 1991 incident.
But the official said the women had been referred to the New York Police Department’s Special Victims squad so that there would be a record of their complaints if more recent allegations were to emerge.
‘I Shut My Eyes and Waited for It to End’
Ms. Baker, the singer, thought Mr. Simmons could elevate her career as her new manager. She had performed as a backup vocalist for Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, and, as Tina B, released pop and dance records in the 1980s.
One night in late 1990 or early 1991, she ran into Mr. Simmons at a club, and he invited her back to his apartment to discuss her career. “I didn’t think anything of going,” Ms. Baker said, having been there many times without incident.
This time, though, “it all got really ugly, pretty fast,” Ms. Baker said. As soon as they entered, Mr. Simmons started pouring drinks and trying to kiss her, leading to a scuffle, she said. She recalled “him on top of me, pushing me down and him saying, ‘Don’t fight me,’” Ms. Baker said. She was pinned on the bed. “I did nothing, I shut my eyes and waited for it to end.”
She cried the whole way home, she said. In interviews and email, her ex-husband, Arthur Baker, a music producer; her psychologist, Dr. Robin Goldberg; another therapist; and a former roommate all confirmed that she told them she was raped.
Mr. Simmons, through his lawyer, said he had “no recollection of ever having any sexual relations with Ms. Baker.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/arts/music/russell-simmons-rape.html