Russell Simmons steps down from companies amid allegation

NEW YORK » Russell Simmons has stepped away from his companies following a second allegation of sexual misconduct, though the Def Jam founder again denied ever being violent.

“Rachel Getting Married” screenwriter Jenny Lumet — the daughter of filmmaker Sidney Lumet — wrote an essay published by The Hollywood Reporter on Thursday in which she recalled a night around 1991 when Simmons took her to his New York apartment and had sex with her, despite her repeated demands that he stop.

“I desperately wanted to keep the situation from escalating. I wanted you to feel that I was not going to be difficult. I wanted to stay as contained as I could,” she writes.

Simmons said in a statement released after the essay’s publication that Lumet’s memory of the night is “very different” from his, but it’s clear to him “that her feelings of fear and intimidation are real.” He apologized for being “thoughtless and insensitive” in some of his relationships. He said he would resign from his businesses because, “I don’t want to be a distraction.”

Lumet wrote that she never told anyone about that night until last month after allegations lodged against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein unleashed a torrent of stories about sexual misbehavior in multiple fields.

Lumet said she went public after model Keri Claussen Khalighi said Simmons coerced her to perform a sex act and later penetrated her without her consent in his New York apartment in 1991.