A former music video producer is suing Russell Simmons for allegedly raping her in the ’90s, according to Variety. The anonymous producer, going by Jane Doe in the suit, filed the suit today, saying that the incident took place when she worked for Simmons’ label, Def Jam in the late 1990s, when she went to his apartment to get approval for a video’s rough cut.
Doe claims that Simmons displayed a pattern of sexual harassment at the Def Jam offices, making sexual innuendos toward her behind closed doors. On the date of the incident in question, she says Simmons “forcefully pinned” her, and continued despite her telling him to “‘get off’ and ‘stop’ several times.” After the incident, she says, she developed depression and anxiety, suffering panic attacks and developing an eating disorder, all of which prompted her to quit her job at Def Jam (she is now a writer and producer elsewhere in the entertainment industry).
She says that she was encouraged to file the lawsuit after coincidentally encountering Simmons at a yoga class in March 2023, where his unapologetic demeanor (Do you think I’m gonna try and f*ck you?” she recalls him saying) revealed he didn’t feel any remorse, despite having been accused of multiple other assaults repeatedly in the prior six years. There have also been a slew of lawsuits filed against other powerful recording industry figures, including Sean “Diddy” Combs, that gave Doe the courage to issue the suit.
While the incident would normally have been past the statute of limitations, New York Adult Survivors Act and Gender Motivated Violence Act allow “lookback windows” in order to pursue such cases. Simmons was also called out by his daughters and ex-wife Kimora Lee on Father’s Day last year for abusiver behavior.