The 47-year-old Japanese descent model Kimora Lee Simmons Net Worth is what we will talk about. He was born on the 3rd of May, 1975. The perseverance and effort that the model has put into building her life shows in the way she carries herself. Born to a Japanese mother who changed her name to Joanne Perkins during the Korean war, Kimora’s mother was not married to Kimora’s father when she was given birth in St. Louis, Missouri. Vernon Whitlock, Kimora’s father, worked as a Federal Marshal, an EEOC investigator, and a bail bondsman who went on to settle as a barber in his hometown of St. Louis. During his whiling, he started a business of narcotics distribution for which he was charged when Kimora was still a grade-schooler. Unable to keep up with his heretics, Kimora’s mother split up with her husband and raised Kimora by herself.
The effort that Joanne has put into her daughter’s life and the decisions that she has taken for her daughter have now made Kimora the owner of her own beauty brand JustFab. She paved an acting career by playing pivotal roles in Beauty Shop (2005) and Waist Deep (2006). She starred in multiple TV shows like America’s Next Top Model and Kimora: House of Fab and authored a book called Fabulosity: What It Is & How to Get It about what she knows best— beauty, fashion, and style.
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A Star’s Journey to Self-Discovery
By the age of ten, Kimora Lee Simmons had already grown 5-feet 8-inches tall and had become an easy target of bullying and name-calling. Being neither white nor a full African-American, she had difficulty belonging and fitting in due to the lack of an Asian community in her locality. In hopes of boosting her morale, at the age of eleven, her mother enrolled her in modeling classes. This made her confident, and soon Chanel offered Kimora an exclusive modeling contract at the age of thirteen. Before long, she had flown to Paris to work under Karl Lagerfeld, the legendary designer of Chanel. By the time she was fourteen, Kimora was the closing model of Chanel’s Haute Couture shows. The young model received a lot of criticism for walking the runway dressed as a bride, but she regrets nothing, she told People Weekly.
But like all good things, Kimora Lee Simmons could not maneuver through the world of fashion unscathed. She had developed a taste for luxury. Defying her mother, Kimora began to indulge herself with Prada bags, designer watches, and BMW convertibles by the age of fifteen. Tyra Banks, model, and Harvard graduate, stated in an interview with New York Magazine that Kimora would tease her about her Wal-Mart bags while flaunting her designers. Such expensive tastes come at a cost.
At the age of seventeen, she began dating 35-year-old Russell Simmons, who made her the owner of Baby Phat in 1999, an extension of his company Phat Farm, but the couple split in 2006. Kimora began dating actor and model Djimon Hounsou but separated in 2012. After the failed relationship, she married a Goldman Sachs investment banker named Tim Leissner, but it was later revealed that he was already married twice at the time of their marriage, which resulted in a violent split. Regardless of her turbulent personal existence, she began a TV personality with her show “Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane”, which aired from 2007 to 2011.
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Kimora Lee Simmons Net Worth
While Kimora Lee Simmons was married to her first husband, she was made the President, designer, and founder of Baby Phat, an urban womenswear extension of Phat Fashions. Known for being one of the first fashion brands for being racially inclusive, Baby Phat grossed a revenue of $30 million by 2001. Though the parent, Phat Farm, was bought by Kellwood Company, Kimora, owing to her dynamic leadership, continued to be the Creative Director of the brand, extending its range to launch jewelry and fragrance lines and many more. Later, she became the President of Phat Fashions, and even after leaving the company in 2010, she retained ownership over her cosmetic and fragrance lines and, in 2019, once again acquired Baby Phat’s ownership.
After her divorce from Russell Simmons, Kimora bought a 13,000-square-foot mansion for $8.5 million in Beverly Hills but soon bought a better house in the same area renting her old home for $55,000 per month. She is also the owner of ventures like Simmons Jewelry Company and KIMORA LEE SIMMONS high fashion collection. In 2015, she founded JustFab, a fashion website that has grown exponentially over the years and is currently owned by her daughter Aoki. Today, Kimora Lee Simmons has a net worth of $200 million. She is a happy mother of five children and a self-made woman in the face of the trials she has faced in life.
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