The accusations of sexual abuse by men in power continue to grow rapidly and now the accusations are rising to an even higher level as three separate women have come forward to accuse Russell Simmons of having actually raped them.
Last month, he was accused by two women of having sexually assaulted them, leading to Simmons leaving his leadership roles at his companies. At that time he apologized for being “thoughtless and insensitive.”
According to the NY Times, Drew Dixon, a former Def Jam executive who worked directly under Simmons, says he raped her in 1995. Singer Tina Baker says that Simmons raped her in the early ’90s when he was her manager. And in the fall of 1998, music journalist Toni Sallie says she was raped by Simmons in a Manhattan apartment that he lured her to by telling her there was a party for his girlfriend there. If only a portion of the recent accusations against Simmons are true, this still shows a sickening pattern of years of sexual abuse against Black women who were marking their mark as professionals in the music industry.
He released a statement to the NY Times that begins:
“I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual.” The full statement can be found here on the NY Times website.
