Kimora Lee Simmons says Tyra Banks once tried to keep her away from Russell Simmons when she was 16, locking her in an apartment for a weekend and blocking her from checking her voice messages. The memory is part of a new recollection from Simmons as she prepares to release Kimora Lee: On Her Own.
The detail lands because Simmons is not just revisiting a long-ago romance; she is putting a name and a face to a warning she did not understand at the time. She said Banks was the person who kept Russell Simmons from reaching her directly, even as the older executive was showing up at her fashion shows, sitting in the front row at the end of the catwalk and cheering loudly whenever she walked.
Simmons said she first met Russell Simmons when she was 16 and that he was 18 years older than her. At the time, she was gaining attention as a Chanel model in the mid-1990s and moving into the New York fashion scene, while he was sending large bouquets of flowers as part of his courtship. She later married him in 1998, and Banks served as a bridesmaid at the wedding.
What makes the story sharper now is that Simmons said she did not read Banks' behavior as protection at first. She initially thought Banks was jealous and simply getting in the way, but later said she realized Banks was trying to protect her. That shift matters because it changes the meaning of the weekend she spent trapped in the apartment: not a petty dispute between friends, but an attempt to interrupt a relationship Simmons now describes with more distance.
Simmons and Russell Simmons separated in 2006 and finalized their divorce in 2009. She has also said she and Banks have not been in contact for several years, and later alleged that she suffered verbal abuse during much of her relationship. With the documentary set to arrive next, the unanswered question is not whether the relationship became public, but how much more of that period Simmons is prepared to describe on camera.
