Russell Simmons Archives

Review: ‘On the Record,’ starring Drew Dixon, Sheri Sher, Sil Lai Abrams, Jenny Lumet, Alexia Norton Jones, Tarana Burke and Kierna Mayo

May 25, 2020

by Carla Hay

Drew Dixon in “On the Record” (Photo courtesy of HBO Max)

Directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering

Culture Representation: The documentary “On the Record” interviews a predominantly black group of people (with some representation of white people)—including #MeToo accusers, media people and activists—who discuss the #MeToo movement and accusations against disgraced entertainment mogul Russell Simmons.

Culture Clash: Most of the accusers are black, and they say there’s extra pressure on them to stay silent if they are accusing a black man because of the justice system’s racial inequalities for black men.

Culture Audience: “On the Record” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in the #MeToo movement and social justice issues.

Drew Dixon and Ella Wylde in “On the Record” (Photo courtesy of HBO Max)

It’s hard enough for many survivors of sexual assault to come forward, but for many people of color, there are added layers of complexity if the person making the assault claim is accusing someone of their own race. Black people are particularly sensitive to being called a “race traitor” when it comes to putting black men in the U.S. criminal justice system, which has a checkered history of racial inequalities. The meaningful documentary “On the Record” shines a light on this issue, as it tells the stories of several women who claim that they’ve been sexually assaulted or harassed by disgraced entertainment mogul Russell Simmons.

Simmons is best known for being the co-founder of Def Jam (which started off as a hip-hop record label and expanded into television and film), Rush Communications and the fashion brands Phat Farm and Baby Phat. In late 2017, at the beginning of the #MeToo Movement resurgence, several women came forward to accuse Simmons of rape or other sexual assault. He has denied all the allegations, by saying all the encounters were consensual. However, he stepped down from his businesses shortly after the public accusations.

One of the accusers is Drew Dixon, who claims that Simmons raped her in 1995, when she was an A&R executive at Def Jam. Dixon gets the most screen time in “On the Record,” because her process of deciding to come forward to The New York Times is chronicled in the documentary. Part of the documentary feels like a semi-biography of Dixon, since so much of her personal history is in the film.

The movie also shows a great deal of Dixon at home (where she’s shown listening to some of the music she worked on and even digging through her stuff to find an old Junior Mafia demo tape), as well as revisiting some of the places where she worked early in her music career. She’s also seen visiting with friends, as they discuss her decision to go public with her accusations. And even some of Dixon’s phone conversations with New York Times reporter Joe Coscarelli (who co-wrote the New York Times article with Melena Ryzik) are in the documentary.

Dixon is the daughter of politically active parents—her mother Sharon was elected the first African American female mayor of Washington, D.C., in 1991—and she has an education from prestigious universities. (She’s a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Business School.) Although she came from a privileged background and likes a wide variety of music, Dixon says in “On the Record” that her heart lies with the street culture of hip-hop and other urban music.

“Music has always been a language I spoke,” Dixon says in the documentary. “Hip-hop had this additional appeal that was empowering for people who were otherwise overlooked. I grew up feeling that it was my mission as the daughter of local politicians. Hip-hop combined the two things that I loved: activism and this sense of pride with music. It seems like it could, I thought, to change the world.”

She knew she wanted to work in showbiz when she had the experience of booking the entertainment for her mother’s mayoral inauguration party. Rare Essence, Big Daddy Kane and Kwamé were the performers. It was then that Dixon decided that she had a knack for working with artists, so she had her sights set on working in a record company’s A&R (artists and repertoire) department, which is responsible for signing artists and overseeing music that goes on albums. After she graduated from Stanford in 1992, Dixon moved to New York City and began paying her dues in the music business.

Dixon worked as a receptionist at Empire Artist Management, Jive Records and Warner Bros. Records. She eventually became an executive at Zomba Publishing. In 1994, she landed what she thought at the time was her dream job: working in the A&R department at Def Jam Records, which was riding high with hip-hop artists such as LL Cool J, Public Enemy, EPMD, Warren G and Redman.

One of her first major successes at Def Jam was helping compile the hit soundtrack for the 1995 documentary film “The Show,” which featured songs from the Notorious B.I.G., 2Pac, Mary J. Blige, Method Man, Warren G, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and A Tribe Called Quest. Dixon also mentions in the documentary how in her early days in the music business, she knew the Notorious B.I.G. (also known as Biggie Smalls) before he was famous, and he would look out for her in the streets that were his territory where he was a drug dealer. Dixon also takes credit for being the person who came up with the idea to pair Blige and Method Man for their 1995 hit “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By.”

In the documentary, Dixon goes into extensive detail about sexual misconduct she says that she experienced while she was a Def Jam employee. Dixon says that Simmons started off with saying crude sexual comments and trying to kiss her, which she felt pressured to laugh off at the time because she was afraid that he would lose her job if she complained. She says his behavior worsened, as he began sexually exposing himself to her.

Dixon remembers how she felt about it at the time: “I thought he was like a tragic ADD [attention-deficit disorder] puppy dog that I had to keep retraining … He always sheepishly apologized later, so I thought, ‘He feels bad.'”

She says that Simmons violently raped after he lured her into his home by telling her that he wanted her to hear some music from a new artist. According to Dixon, Simmons overpowered her, ignored her frantic attempts to stop the assault, and then afterward acted as if the encounter was consensual. Almost all his accusers tell similar stories.

Dixon says she was so traumatized that she eventually quit working for Def Jam. She became an A&R executive at Arista Records in 1996, where she had success working with such artists as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, TLC, Usher and Carlos Santana. But things began to go sour for her at Arista when her boss Clive Davis was pushed out of the company and Antonio “L.A.” Reid became president/CEO of Arista in 2000.

Dixon says that Reid sexually harassed her repeatedly, and when she rejected his advances, he began to undermine her work. She says that she tried to sign Kanye West and John Legend to Arista, but Reid refused to let her sign them, and she believes it was partly out of spite. Dixon eventually quit Arista in 2004, and enrolled in Harvard Business School. However, she hasn’t worked at a major record company since then.

Reid (who was fired from Sony Music’s Epic Records in May 2017, because of alleged sexual harassment) and Simmons declined to be interviewed for the documentary. They each issued denial statements that are in the film. After the documentary was made, Simmons and rapper/actor 50 Cent made public statements pressuring executive producer Oprah Winfrey and Apple TV+ to drop the movie, which they eventually did. HBO Max acquired “On the Record” film after the movie’s well-received world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

In “On the Record,” Dixon says that there were three things that happened in the fall of 2017 that compelled her to go public with her accusations: (1) When screenwriter/producer Jenny Lumet (daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Sidney Lumet) came forward with her own accusations about being raped by Simmons; (2) when Dixon saw the courage of Roy Moore’s accuser Beverly Young, who claimed that the disgraced politician sexually assaulted her when she was an underage teenager; and (3) when Dixon saw the statement that actor Harold Perrineau made about his actress daughter Aurora, who came forward with sexual-assault accusations against writer Maury Miller.

Dixon comments, “I thought, ‘I’d like to be a warrior. I’m tired of being a victim. I’ve been a victim for 22 years. Let me see what the other thing feels like. It can’t be worse.’ And that’s when I said, ‘Okay. I will go on the record.'”

Another accuser of Russell Simmons in the film is writer Alexia Norton Jones, who talks about how her past trauma still affects her. “He took a piece of me with him and he carried it with him for three fucking decades,” she says of Simmons. Dixon comments on going public after keeping silent for several years: “It was like pressing play on a movie I had paused 22 years ago in the middle of the scariest scene.” Other accusers in the film include Sheri Sher, a founding member of the all-female rap group Mercedes Ladies; singer/songwriter Tina Baker; publicist Kelly Cutrone; and model Keri Claussen Khalighi.

Sil Lai Abrams, another Simmons accuser who claims that he raped her, was an executive assistant at Def Jam in the 1990s. She describes the work environment: “It didn’t feel like an office, so much as you were almost like in a club.” Abrams comments that although there is “tremendous mobility for women” in the music business, “a lot of sexual harassment was baked into the culture.” Dixon also mentions that when she began working for Def Jam, Lyor Cohen (who was president of the record company and Simmons’ second-in-command at the time), wrongly assumed that Dixon had slept with Simmons to get the job.

Although some of Simmons’ accusers are white (such as Baker, Cutrone and Khalighi), most of the Simmons accusers are black. #MeToo movement founder Tarana Burke says, “A lot of black women felt disconnected to #MeToo initially. They felt like, ‘That’s great this sister is out there. We support her as an individual, but this movement is not for us.”

“Intersectionality” author Kimberlé Crenshaw comments on how #MeToo accusations are handled and perceived: “America picks and chooses who they are going to listen to. Not only does class have an indicator, but what that person looks like is an indicator. So, who we listen to is who we see as valuable in America.”

Dr. Joan Morgan (a feminist/cultural critic) and author Shanita Hubbard also weigh in with their thoughts on how black women might experience the #MeToo movement differently from other people. “I thought the black community would hate my guts,” Dixon says in explaining one of the reasons why she was very reluctant to come forward with her accusations about Simmons, who was responsible for employing and financially enriching a lot of black people.

Kierna Mayo, a former writer/editor at The Source (a leading hip-hop magazine), has this to say about black #MeToo survivors: “It’s high time that the lens turns to us, and that we’re allowed to be heard—and more importantly to be believed.” Mayo says that she believes the Simmons accusers because she knows what it’s like to be alone with Simmons. In the documentary interview, she doesn’t come right out and say that she has a #MeToo story about him, but she hints that if she did, she’s not ready to talk about it on camera.

One of the more powerful moments in the film is when Dixon, Abrams and Lumet meet up to show support for each other. Lumet says, “I didn’t expect anyone to be in it for the long haul with me. I’m glad I met you guys, because we’re in it for the long haul.”

The three women are also very candid in discussing colorism and admitting that being light-skinned black people gives them a “light privilege” advantage that people with darker skin might not have. Dixon comes right out and says: “Part of the reason why I did speak out is because I have ‘light privilege.'”

The documentary is undoubtedly sympathetic to the accusers and takes the viewpoint the accusers should not be vilified for how long it might have taken them to come forward, because every individual has a unique path in coming to terms with whatever trauma they experienced. Still, Lumet expresses guilt that is common for people who waited several years to tell their #MeToo stories: “I wish I could’ve gotten my shit together earlier so he [Russell Simmons] would’ve left everyone alone.”

“Off the Record” is a very female-centric movie, but there are a few men who are interviewed in the movie. Miguel Mojica, who was an A&R coordinator for EMI Records around the time that he knew Dixon back in the mid-1990s, says in the documentary that Dixon told him that Simmons raped her not long after it allegedly happened.

Mojica remembers that when he first met Dixon, “She was a bright spirit” and “we hit it off right away.” But he says she also changed after the alleged rape and wasn’t as light-hearted as she was when they first met. Other men interviewed in the movie are rapper/music producer Daddy-O and attorney Gary Watson, a former outside counsel to Def Jam.

Going public with the accusations wasn’t the only major life change for Dixon that’s chronicled in “Off the Record.” In the documentary, Dixon says that she asked her husband for a divorce, partly because of what she was going through with coming forward as a #MeToo survivor. (Dixon’s ex-husband and their two children are not in the movie.) But on the bright side, Dixon is shown taking steps to get back in the music industry, as there’s a scene of her mentoring a young singer named Ella Wylde.

Although Dixon gets the majority of the screen time compared to the other accusers, “On the Record” co-directors Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering don’t lose sight of the overall message that they obviously want the film to have: Sexual misconduct should not be excused because of someone’s race, and #MeToo survivors should not be shamed or pressured to keep silent because of their race.

HBO Max will premiere “On the Record” on May 27, 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bgVmjX86bQ

Review: ‘Beastie Boys Story,’ starring Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond

April 24, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Beastie Boys Story”

Directed by Spike Jonze

Culture Representation: This Beastie Boys documentary is a recording of a storytelling, multimedia stage presentation in the group’s hometown of New York City, with surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond as the narrators telling the story of how the Beastie Boys became the first white rappers to have massive crossover success.

Culture Clash: The highs and lows of the Beastie Boys’ career included experimental music that went against what was popular at the time; bitter legal disputes over unpaid royalties; and fighting stereotypes of their early image as mindless “party boys.”

Culture Audience: Aside from the group’s die-hard fans, “Beastie Boys Story” will appeal mostly to people who are nostalgic about rock-infused hip-hop music from the late 1980s and 1990s, when the Beastie Boys were at their peak.

Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond in “Beastie Boys Story” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)

In October and November 2018, Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond—the surviving members of the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum hip-hop /rock trio Beastie Boys—did a brief theater tour that was a multimedia, live presentation of their bestselling, critically acclaimed 2018 memoir “Beastie Boys Book.” The tour (which visited New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco and London) was then extended to three additional shows in April 2019, in Philadelphia and New York City. Footage from the tour’s last stop at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn is the basis of this documentary, directed by longtime Beastie Boys collaborator Spike Jonze.

The Beastie Boys no longer exist as a group, since founding member Adam Yauch (also known as MCA) tragically died of cancer in 2012, at the age of 47. Horovitz (also known as Ad-Rock) and Diamond (also known as Mike D) dedicated the book and the tour to Yauch, who is lovingly and respectfully remembered. The documentary is essentially Horovitz and Diamond standing on stage, reading “Beastie Boys Book” excerpts in chronological order from a teleprompter, while archival photos and videos play on a big screen in the background.

Under other circumstances and with the wrong people, it could have been an awfully dull or pretentious stage show. But the entire show, as presented in this nearly two-hour documentary, is humorous, emotionally moving and overall an entertaining ride. The show also pokes fun at the fact that Horovitz and Diamond are reading from a teleprompter.

And there are a few segments when director Jonze can be heard on a loudspeaker, interrupting the show to say that he’s not going to play a videoclip or he messed up and missed a video cue. Some of these “mistakes” could have been staged (it sure seems that way), but even if these “flubs” were pre-planned, it achieved the intended result: to make the audience laugh.

People who don’t care about the Beastie Boys’ music can find something to like in this movie, whether it’s the candid way that Horovitz and Diamond admit that fame went to all of their heads when the Beastie Boys’ first album (1986’s “License to Ill”) was a smash hit, or the vivid descriptions of the group’s evolution from being bratty party boys to mature musicians who now cringe at the sexist lyrics they had in their early songs.

Yauch is described as the leader of the Beastie Boys, a group he co-founded in New York City in 1981. He was the one who took the most creative risks and the one who was the most likely to encourage other people to also push boundaries and explore new skills and interests. Diamond was viewed as the biggest “clown” in the group, and he admits that he spent much of the Beastie Boys’ heyday in a haze of drug abuse. Horovitz was often perceived as the “cool heartthrob” of the Beastie Boys, and he’s definitely more dominant than Diamond during the stage show. However, Horovitz also reveals a vulnerable side—he gets so tearful and emotional when talking about the Beastie Boys’ last concert with Yauch that he asks Diamond to finish what Horovitz was supposed to say on the teleprompter.

People unfamiliar with the history of the Beastie Boys might be surprised to find out that the group’s original lineup included drummer Kate Schellenbach, a friend from their teen years. Schellenbach would later become the drummer for the all-female rock band Luscious Jackson, whose lead singer Jill Cunniff was also a teenage friend of the Beastie Boys members. Horovitz expresses regret about Schellenbach being ousted from the Beastie Boys when the group decided to change its image to being full-on “bad boys,” in order to get a record deal.

“Licensed to Ill” was released on Def Jam Records, which was co-founded by Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. Rubin was the group’s producer, while Simmons managed the Beastie Boys. At the time, Beastie Boys idolized Run-DMC, the pioneering rap trio that was signed to Def Jam and was also managed by Simmons. Rubin and Simmons saw an opportunity to market to the masses a white, “bad boy” version of Run-DMC. It worked. “Licensed to Ill” became one of the biggest-selling debut albums of all time (it’s sold 10 million copies in the U.S.), spawning the breakthrough crossover hit “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party),” which remains the Beastie Boys’ most famous song.

Within two years, the Beastie Boys went from being the opening act for Madonna (a gig they got only because Madonna’s manager thought Run-DMC’s asking fee was too high) and the opening act for Run-DMC to headlining their own arena concerts. By the time the Beastie Boys were ready to make their second album in 1988, they had severed ties with Def Jam’s Simmons and Rubin over unpaid royalties and started over with a new multi-album deal with Capitol Records.

The Beastie Boys were also burned out from constant touring, and they took time apart from each other, which is when Horovitz moved to Los Angeles and started a fledgling acting career. Part of the documentary includes a self-deprecating look at Horovitz’s feature-film acting debut with his starring role in the 1989 dramatic movie “Lost Angels.” Yauch and Diamond also soon relocated to Los Angeles. Horovitz confesses that during this period of time, “I continued to run away from everything I was feeling” to escape from the grief of personal issues, such as his mother’s death from cancer in 1983.

But because the Beastie Boys had experienced fame and fortune so quickly, they went overboard in spending money on that second album, 1989’s “Paul’s Boutique.” They rented a high-priced house in the Hollywood Hills, indulged in a lot of expensive studio time, and partied too much. The house was owned by showbiz couple Alex and Marilyn Grasshoff, whose closet was raided by the Beastie Boys and inspired the 1970s fashion in the Beastie Boys videos for “Paul’s Boutique.”

The “Paul’s Boutique” album was a flop when it was first released, and the Beastie Boys went from headlining arenas for their first album to performing at nightclubs for their second album. It was a humbling experience that would’ve broken a lot of bands, but it just strengthened the Beastie Boys. They began to value the importance of staying true to their creative vision and not listening to other people telling them who they should be. The sample-heavy and richly layered “Paul’s Boutique” is now an influential hip-hop classic that has gone multiplatinum.

The Beastie Boys further evolved, by relying less on sampled music and creating their own sounds, playing their own instruments, and starting to sing more on their songs. The result was 1992’s “Check Your Head” album (featuring the MTV psychedelic hit “So What’cha Want”), which further solidified the Beastie Boys as a group that could easily blur the boundaries between hip-hop and rock. Diamond says, “It wasn’t until the end of the ‘Check Your Head’ tour that I actually, confidently considered myself to be a musician.”

The group’s biggest comeback came with 1994’s “Ill Communication” album, which featured the hit “Sabotage” and a popular ’70s-inspired police detective chase video for “Sabotage” that was directed by Jonze. The “Sabotage” video was nominated for five MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, and the song received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.

By the mid-1990s, the Beastie Boys had relocated back to New York City, after the tragic overdose death of their close friend Dave Scilken in 1991. The group had also started a record label (Grand Royal), and Yauch had directed several Beastie Boys videos under the alias Nathanial Hörnblowér, a fictional Swiss persona who wore traditional Swiss clothing and campy disguises. The documentary includes footage from the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, when Yauch (dressed as Nathanial Hörnblowér) crashed the stage and did a protest interruption when R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” won the award for Breakthrough Video over the Beastie Boys’ “Sabatoge.” Unlike Kayne West’s MTV VMA stage bumrush of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech in 2009, this Yauch/Hörnblowér interruption was all in good fun and intended to be comedic.

Yauch also became deeply involved in social issues, such as Tibetan freedom rights. His spearheading of the Tibetan Freedom Concert, which was an annual event that began in 1996, is fondly remembered in the documentary. (In 2008, Yauch also co-founded the independent film/music company Oscilloscope Laboratories, which is not mentioned in the documentary.) Horovitz describes Yauch as a “once-in-a-lifetime friend,” while Diamond says that as close as Yauch was to his bandmates, he still remained a “conundrum” and a “contradiction” because he was so unpredictable.

The Beastie Boys’ 1998 album “Hello Nasty” is cited as one of the group’s favorites. The album spawned the hit “Intergalactic,” which has a Nathanial Hörnblowér-directed video that parodied Japanese Super Sentai shows. (The “Intergalactic” video is shown during the documentary’s end credits.) The “Hello Nasty” album was a another smash hit for the Beastie Boys, and it resulted in them winning their first two Grammy Awards: Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group (for “Intergalactic”) and Best Alternative Music Album.

“Intergalactic” also won Best Hip-Hop Video at the 1999 MTV VMAs, which honored the Beastie Boys in 1998 with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Although the Beastie Boys released three more studio albums after “Hello Nasty,” these albums—2004’s “To the 5 Boroughs,” 2007’s “The Mix-Up” and 2011’s “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”—get hardly any screen time in the documentary, compared to the previous albums. It’s probably because the filmmakers know that the Beastie Boys’ most popular music was from the 1980s and 1990s.

The documentary also shows Horovitz and Diamond giving credit and showing appreciation to several of the collaborators and colleagues that the Beastie Boys had along the way, including Schellenbach, the late John Berry (who was an original guitarist for Beastie Boys), manager Paul Silva, songwriter/musician Money Mark and producers Mario Caldato Jr. (also known as Mario C.), Matt Dike and the Dust Brothers.

People who’ve already read “Beastie Boys Book” won’t discover anything new by seeing this documentary. There’s no behind-the-scenes footage of the book tour, other than a brief montage in the beginning of the movie that shows fans waiting outside the theater and talking about who’s their favorite Beastie Boys member. And there appears to be not much ad-libbing or spontaneity during the show or interaction with the audience.

The only exception to audience interaction is outtake footage in the middle of the end credits that shows Ben Stiller, David Cross and Steve Buscemi standing up in the audience, and interrupting the show with comedic scripted dialogue when Horovitz and Diamond talk about “Paul’s Boutique” flopping. These scenes, which were obviously filmed at different performances, are better off as outtakes, since they don’t fit the flow of the rest of the show.

However, the documentary overall doesn’t rely on a lot of gimmicks. Only a few props are used on stage, such as a giant reel-to-reel tape recorder that’s brought out when a story is told about how Beastie Boys first discovered layered sampling in the recording studio. And there aren’t too many distracting cutaway shots to the audience. (This is not a kid-friendly movie though, since there’s a lot of cursing throughout the entire documentary.)

“Beastie Boys Story” is a well-edited and engaging visual capsule of the group’s history. At the very least, this documentary might make people curious to check out more of their music or to read “Beastie Boys Book” to get a deeper dive into more of the group’s fascinating stories.

Apple TV+ premiered “Beastie Boys Story” on April 24, 2020.

Russell Simmons scandal: Entertainment mogul steps down from his companies after being accused of sexual misconduct

November 30, 2017

by Colleen McGregor

Russell Simmons, an entertainment executive and producer who is best known for co-founding Def Jam Recordings and Rush Communications, has stepped down from his companies after multiple women have come forward with claims that he sexually assaulted them.

The first public accusation came from model Keri Claussen Khalighi, who told her story in a Los Angeles Times article that was published on November 19, 2017. Claussen Khalighi claimed that Simmons sexually assaulted her in 1991 when she was 17, and director Brett Ratner stood by and did nothing. Multiple other women have come forward accusing Ratner of sexual misconduct. Ratner’s misdeeds allegedly spanned over several years, include allegations from actress Olivia Munn that Ratner masturbated in front of her without her consent in 2006 and actress Natasha Henstridge, who claims that Ratner forced her to perform oral sex on him in 1993. Ratner has denied the allegations. After Claussen Khalighi’s story was published, Simmons issued a statement saying that his encounter with her was consensual.

Then on November 30, 2017, The Hollywood Reporter published a first-hand story by screenwriter Jenny Lumet, who wrote an open letter to Simmons saying that a sexual encounter that they had in 1991 was non-consensual. Lumet, who wrote the movie screenplays to 2008’s “Rachel Getting Married” and 2017’s “The Mummy,” says that Simmons had pursued her off and on romantically for years before the alleged sexual assault, but she rejected his advances, and he seemed to accept that their relationship would remain platonic. Lumet and Simmons had mutual friends, and had at one time worked together when Lumet had a role in “Tougher Than Leather,” a 1988 movie that had Simmons as one of its producers.

That friendly relationship changed in 1991, when one night Simmons offered to give Lumet a ride home. Instead of taking her home, Simmons instructed his driver to go to Simmons’ home, where Lumet (who was 24 at the time) says Simmons pressured and intimidated her into having sex, even though she verbally protested his sexual advances many times that night. Although Simmons did not use physical violence to force her into the encounter, Lumet says she was fearful and in shock at the time, and went along with his demands so she could get it over with and escape from Simmons.

After Lumet’s claims were published, Simmons issued the following statement: “I have been informed with great anguish of Jenny Lumet’s recollection about our night together in 1991. I know Jenny and her family and have seen her several times over the years since the evening she described. While her memory of that evening is very different from mine, it is now clear to me that her feelings of fear and intimidation are real. While I have never been violent, I have been thoughtless and insensitive in some of my relationships over many decades, and I sincerely apologize.

“This is a time of great transition. The voices of the voiceless, those who have been hurt or shamed, deserve and need to be heard. As the corridors of power inevitably make way for a new generation, I don’t want to be a distraction, so I am removing myself from the businesses that I founded. The companies will now be run by a new and diverse generation of extraordinary executives who are moving the culture and consciousness forward. I will convert the studio for yogic science into a not-for-profit center of learning and healing. As for me, I will step aside and commit myself to continuing my personal growth, spiritual learning and above all to listening.”

Simmons, who is 59, is divorced with two daughters—Ming Lee (born in 2000) and Aoki Lee (born in 2002)—from his marriage to model Kimora Lee. Simmons and Lee started dating in 1992, when she was 17 and he was 35. They were married in 1998, separated in 2006, and officially divorced in 2009.

After Claussen Khalighi’s story was published, Simmons also came under fire when actor Terry Crews posted an email that he received from Simmons in which Simmons advised Crews to back off from pursuing a sexual assault claim against Hollywood agent Adam Venit. In October 2017, Crews went public with his story about Venit aggressively grabbing Crews’ genitals twice at an industry party in 2016. Crews said that Venit called him the day after the incident to apologize and to make the excuse that he was drunk at the party.

Crews initially did not name Venit in telling the story, but a month after going public with his story, he named Venit as the assailant and filed a complaint with the Los Angeles police. Venit, who headed the motion pictures department at the William Morris Endeavor (WME) agency, was placed on leave for about one month since Crews went public. Venit no longer heads the motion pictures department at WME, but he is still working at the company.

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal that broke in October 2017, Simmons is one of several high-profile and powerful men whose careers and reputations have been ruined after numerous people have accused them of sexual misconduct that took place over several years. The growing list of shamed celebrities includes Ratner, actor Kevin Spacey, TV journalist Matt Lauer, comedian Louis C.K., TV journalist Charlie Rose, actor Ed Westwick, actor Jeffrey Tambor and TV journalist Mark Halperin. All have lost jobs and/or business deals as a result of these stories being made public. Many other prominent men, although not as famous, have also been ousted from their positions of power in October and November 2017. Amazon Studios, DC Comics, National Public Radio, Nickelodeon, Pixar, Vox Media and Warner Bros. Television are just some of the entertainment and media companies that have had massive shake-ups behind the scenes after high-ranking men were fired, resigned, or were placed on leave for sexual misconduct.