Thursday, March 28, 2024

Russell Simmons Accuser Explains Decision Not to Immediately Flee Alleged Sexual Assault (Watch)

Keri Claussen Khalighi
Keri Claussen Khalighi

*Fashion model, Keri Claussen Khalighi, who says she was 17 when she was sexually assaulted by Russell Simmons, explained her first live TV interview since going public the reasons why she didn’t immediately flee the situation.

Khalighi told the Los Angeles Times that she went to Simmons’ apartment, with Brett Ratner in tow, in 1991, where Simmons quickly began making aggressive sexual advances, including tearing off her clothes. “I looked over at Brett and said ‘help me’ and I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she told the newspaper. “In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together.” Khalighi said that Simmons then tried to force her to have intercourse, which she “fought…wildly.” He coerced her to perform oral sex, though, she said, and she “acquiesced.”

After that initial assault, though, Khalighi didn’t run out, she explained on “Megyn Kelly Today”; she stayed and took a shower. While she was taking her shower, she told the Times, Simmons walked up behind her and briefly penetrated her without her consent. She jerked away and then he left, she told the paper, saying of the experience, “it hurt so much.”

Khalighi defended her behavior in a video interview from L.A. (She is nine months pregnant and expecting her third daughter Monday, Kelly explained.) She said she’s learned that sexual assaults don’t follow a “cut-and-dry” pattern, and women can fight, flee, freeze or behave otherwise.

“I certainly froze, and I certainly did what I could to normalize what was an incredibly hard to process situation,” she told Kelly. “It took me years to process this experience.”

When asked if she blamed and shamed herself, Khalighi said “absolutely,” adding, “There’s a lot of guilt and shame involved in what happened.”

When asked how she refused Simmons’ advances, Khalighi said, choking up, that she made it clear with her “body language,” adding, “It’s very apparent when somebody doesn’t want an advance to happen.” Her body was “closed,” she said, and she asked Ratner for help, but after seeing his face she realized “this was their plan all along,” she said. “There was no help that was gonna come.”

Simmons strongly disputed Khalighi’s account in a statement to the Times claiming, “Everything that happened between us 26 years ago was completely consensual and with Keri’s full participation.”

In a statement received by THR, Simmons added, “I completely and unequivocally deny the horrendous allegations of non-consensual sex against me with every fiber of my being.”

Ratner’s attorney Martin Singer said of the incident with Khalighi that Ratner has “no recollection” of her asking him for help and didn’t see her “protest.”

When asked about Simmons’ statement and claim that what happened was “consensual and with [her] full participation,” Khalighi shook her head and said, “I don’t even know what to say.”

“I almost don’t even want to speak against that because it’s ludicrous,” she added, mentioning, what she told the Times, that she’s spoken with Simmons about the encounter both in person and over the phone, where, she told Kelly, there was “no dispute of what we were talking about. We were both talking about what happened on that night and he actually apologized.”

“Part of what’s so confusing and re-traumatizing is what he’s speaking about privately with me is completely different from what’s come out publicly,” she said, calling the discrepancy, “repugnant with the hypocrisy, the lies and the denial.”

Khalighi said that she saw Simmons at the Soho House in West Hollywood last year, where he approached her and delivered a “really touching, remorseful apology” for his behavior. Simmons’ attorney, Brad D. Rose, meanwhile, says the apology was in the “context for the embarrassment and upheaval the weekend caused her” connected to her “infidelity.” She disputes that account.

Khalighi said she reached out to Simmons after the Times posted its Nov. 1 story about Ratner and said she was considering telling her story. He called her and they spoke for 27 minutes, phone records reviewed by the Times reveal. She said during that call he didn’t deny any of her claims but apologized and mentioned that he’s the father of two daughters.

As for why she’s going public with her accusations against Simmons, Khalighi cited the “empowerment revolution” happening among women.

“If I can use my experience to further this conversation and facilitate change,” she said. “I am bound and determined to make this environment safer and more empowered for my daughters and for the sons and daughters of future generations.”

Watch below:

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