A 49,000-square-foot, 20-bathroom mansion in Saddle River, N.J., a 25-carat diamond ring, a fleet of luxury cars, five maids, four assistants, two live-in nannies, a chef and two drivers. These were the luxuries that were cited by Harper’s Bazaar in the NY Post’s gossip column as the reasons that Kimora Lee Simmons “comes off a mite materialistic.”
Kimora’s husband and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is more than a little upset. “Every other week it’s the same thing, and I’m upset about it and she’s upset about it,” Simmons stated. “Does anyone care about Donatella Versace’s extravagance or Karl Lagerfeld’s? This is all because Kimora is an African-American Asian woman. It’s as if they think she’s undeserving.”
Kimora, who is the designer of the Baby Phat apparel line among other things, sent an angry letter to her tormentors telling them, “It is obvious the writers of the New York Post really don’t quite know me, my husband, or family…I’m not defined by the materialistic things that were listed in the article. I do possess them but they do not possess me. My focus is on my children, my family, my career, and my community. Extravagance is in the eye of the beholder.”
