Russell Simmons is officially opening up about the sexual assault allegations against him in a new interview with the Breakfast Club.
In the interview, Charlamagne The God asked Simmons if he had watched “On The Record,” the documentary detailing his alleged victims’ stories of sexual assault, to which Simmons said that he had not seen it. However, he said initially, he was happy to know that Oprah Winfrey, his former friend, was involved with the doc.
“I was thrilled to know that Oprah was involved.” He went on to add, “I thought that it was impossible for her to go forward.”
As he continued, the Def Jam co-founder denied the allegations and explained that he is only guilty of being a womanizer and a playboy during his run as one of the most sought after executives in hip-hop.
“I’m guilty of having underwritten, supported, made the soundtrack for, taken advantage of, and lived in a grossly unjust society. I helped write the song “I’m A Hoe” with Adina,” Simmons said. “I made the movie ‘How To Be a Player’ and Bill Bellamy played me. So I know what I’m guilty of, and I’ve been unconscious as a playboy, and today, the title is appropriate of ‘womanizer.’ So I’m guilty of that. And back then, I thought it was a game,” he added.
The mogul went on to list the many famous women that he dated and still maintains good friendships with to this day, noting that each of those women would vouch for him and his character.
“They don’t have the experience that the movie makes me to be.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Simmons spoke more on Winfrey’s involvement in the doc, as well as her subsequent decision to step away. “She walked away, and she did say that the stories had inconsistencies. Not one, but all stories,” Simmons said as he explained why he refused to call the women liars.
“I can’t say someone doesn’t feel victimized. I can tell you that I don’t feel that I victimized them, and how could I say that? I took nine separate 3-hour lie detector tests,” he continued.
Simmons said that these lie detector tests were conducted in California and are 95% accurate.
“I want my daughters to have proper boundaries because toxic femininity is when one perhaps may not put up those boundaries and may regret later. So I want my daughters to know how to say no, and I want my daughters to put up boundaries and be strong and be leaders.”
After the release of the interview, Drew Dixon, a former Def Jam Records exec who is also one of Simmons’s accusers, blasted the former music exec on social media, slamming his comments about his daughters’ boundaries, something she claims he does not respect.
“Teaching your daughters to have ‘boundaries’ and say ‘no’ won’t protect them from rapists like you @UncleRUSH I said ‘NO’… ‘STOP’… ‘PLEASE’… ‘I’M BEGGING YOU’… and CRIED, while you ripped off my clothes, pinned me down and told me to stop fighting. F— all the way off,” Dixon wrote on Twitter.
Sil Lai Abrams, another of Simmons’ accusers who claims he raped her in 1994, also voiced her disdain for the interview, blasting The Breakfast Club for giving Simmons a platform.
“Why do you carry water for this man?” Abrams tweeted. “Why now? Why are you so tone-deaf? You’re all complicit in ensuring that black women’s right to bodily autonomy continues to be denied. You’re also rape apologists.”
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