Kimora Lee Simmons

About Kimora Lee Simmons

Kimora Lee Simmons (born Kimora Lee Perkins on May 4, 1975) is an American model, author, the head of design for Baby Phat, KLS, a new line called Fabulosity, and is occasionally an actress. Simmons' ancestry is African from her father and Japanese-Korean from her mother's side of the family. Simmons became CEO of Phat Fashions after her ex-husband Russell Simmons stepped down.

"I consider myself to be one of the black women in fashion who made it", Kimora says. "But black women don't look at me like that." "A number of them [black women] probably think Russell should be married to a black woman (rather than Afro-Asian)", says Emil Wilbekin, the editorial director of Vibe magazine.

Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She is of Japanese and African American descent. Her mother is Joanne Perkins (who was adopted by an American serviceman during the Korean War and renamed Joanne Perkins), who now goes by the Japanese name "Kyoko", which she asserts was her "full blooded Japanese mother's name. Her father is African American Vernon Whitlock Jr., who previously worked as a federal marshal, a social security administrator, and then a barber in St. Louis. He served three years for drug charges while Simmons was in grade school.