Kimora Lee Simmons

Kimora Lee Simmons first met Russell Simmons in November 1992 at the ‘Fashion Week’ in New York City. At an impressionable age of 17, she was swept off her feet by the lavish attention given to her by Russell and ended up getting married on December 20, 1998. The couple separated in March 2006 and got divorced in January 2009.

In March 2007, Kimora started dating Djimon Hounsou, a model and an actor and the next year took part in a traditional Benin commitment ritual. The couple, however, never got married legally in America, and separated in November 2012.

Kimora confirmed in February 2014 that she had been married for some time to Tim Leissner, a former ‘Goldman Sachs’ banker who had been barred by American market regulators from participating in the securities market for his failure to provide work-related documents.

Kimora Lee Simmons was born Kimora Lee Perkins on May 4, 1975, in St. Louis, Missouri to Joanne "Kyoko" Perkins and Vernon Whitlock Jr.

Her mother was a Korea-born Japanese lady who was adopted during the Korean War by a U.S. serviceman, while her father an African American, Vernon Whitlock Jr., worked in various capacities; as a Federal marshal, as an investigator for the ‘Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’, a bail bondsman, and even as a barber in the city of St. Louis.

Kimora grew up in Florissant, a northern St. Louis lower-middle-class suburb where life proved to be pretty tough. Studying at the Lutheran North High School, she was the constant target of teasing and bullying, especially because of her height compounded by her mixed ancestry. By the time she was ten years old, Kimora was already 5 feet 10 inches.

When Kimora was still in school, her father was arrested for dealing in narcotics and sentenced to 24 years imprisonment after he refused to turn informer in exchange for probation. While he was released after serving three years of his sentence, his marriage broke up, and Kimora was subsequently raised by her mother.

To give her the confidence and poise to handle her height, Kimora’s mother got her admitted to a modeling school at the age of 11. Just a couple of year later, Marie-Christine Kollock, representing the renowned Paris modeling agency, ‘Glamour’, discovered her when Kimora was participating in a Kansas City model hunt competition.

After making a sensational start to a career on the ramp, she was soon on the runway for some of the top fashion designers of the day like ‘Fendi’, ‘Yves Saint Laurent’, ‘Emanuel Ungaro’ and ‘Valentino’. Kimora was featured by the popular fashion magazine, ‘Harper’s Bazaar’ on the covers of its Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia editions.

In 1993, she acted in her first film, ‘For Love or Money’, a romantic comedy starring Michael J. Fox.

In 1999, the year after she married Russell Simmons, the owner of ‘Phat Farm’ clothing line, she launched ‘Baby Phat’, a fashion label that she wanted to make an aspirational brand. With her passion, she took the label from mere baby T-shirts to a complete line of urban sophisticated women’s wear.

After the ‘Kellwood Company’ bought ‘Phat Farm’ and ‘Baby Phat’, from Russell Simmons in January 2004 for $140 million, it appointed Kimora, then the creative director of ‘Baby Phat’, as the president and creative director of ‘Phat Fashions’.

During the period 2002—2006, she acted in minor roles in films like ‘Brown Sugar’, ‘Beauty Shop’, ‘Rebound’ and ‘Waist Deep’. In 2003, she was a judge in the American TV reality show, ‘America's Next Top Model’ and also made an appearance in a music video ‘Change Clothes’ that reached #10 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ in December 2003.

In 2003, Kimora was given a ‘Tony Award’ as the executive producer of the critically acclaimed ‘Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam’.

In 2008, Washington University’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts honored her with the ‘Susan Block Silver Ripper Award’.