Russell Simmons past is catching up to him again.
Seven years after surviving the storm of sexual abuse and harassment allegations against him, Simmons is now being sued by an anonymous former music video producer who accused the 66-year-old record exec. of raping her in the late ‘90s when she went to his Manhattan apartment to get his approval for a rough cut of a video.
Per court documents obtained by Variety, the woman, referred to as Jane Doe, “rejected his advance and told him to ‘get off’ and ‘stop’ several times.”
“She told him she was ‘serious and she ‘meant it.’ But Ms. Doe was forcefully pinned, could not move under his weight and Mr. Simmons would not listen to her,” the suit detailed, further claiming that Simmons ignored her pleas.
In the lawsuit, it was further explained that Jane Doe could relate to the accounts of Simmons’ other alleged victims of rape and sexual misconduct, expounded upon in a 2020 documentary.
“When Ms. Doe learned about the accounts of the other survivors, she was struck by how similar they were to her own horrible experience at the hands of Mr. Simmons,” the documents stated, pointing to incidents before the alleged assault, such as Simmons sexually harassing Jane Doe in her office at work.
As a result of these encounters, Jane Doe seemingly suffered a fall in her career.
“She was proud of her contributions to the burgeoning musical genre of hip-hop, but her hard work and her career in music was disrupted and derailed by Mr. Simmons, a rich and powerful celebrity whose wealth and influence allowed his abusive behavior to go unchallenged for decades,” Jane Doe’s lawyers Kenya Davis and Sigrid McCawley said.
