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Russell Simmons faces another lawsuit over rape allegations
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 26 March 2018
Def Jam co-founder and record industry veteran Russell Simmons is facing another lawsuit in relation to an allegation of rape.
A number of women made allegations of sexual assault against Simmons late last year as the #MeToo movement gained momentum. A lawsuit then followed in January when filmmaker Jennifer Jarosik went legal over allegations Simmons assaulted her at his home in LA after she met him there to discuss a documentary project.
In a new $10 million lawsuit filed in the LA Country Superior Court on Friday, an unnamed woman also accuses Simmons of rape. She claims that she met the hip hop mogul while at a concert with her son. He took the both of them backstage and, after taking her son home, the woman then went out with Simmons for drinks.
The lawsuit alleges that at the end of the night he asked her to accompany him to his hotel room. The legal filing then states: “She was reluctant, but Simmons insisted it was not an invitation to have sexual relations since he was dating a well-known model”. But, it is claimed, Simmons then raped the woman in his hotel room.
Simmons has denied all of the allegations made against him to date, and issued another statement on Friday to that effect. The statement, provided to Billboard, said the various accusations and lawsuits “have shocked me to my core as I have never been abusive or violent in any way in my relations with women.
He went on: “I have submitted myself to multiple lie detector tests. I denied forced sex and sexual harassment allegations brought against me in each test; I also answered no to the question, ‘Have you ever physically forced any woman to have sexual intercourse?’ I passed all of the lie detector tests”.
