Summary: Model Keri Claussen Khalighi claims that Russell Simmons raped her when she was a teenager.
Last week, former model Keri Claussen Khalighi told The Los Angeles Times that music mogul Russell Simmons raped her when she was 17 while director Brett Ratner watched. Simmons issued a statement, stating that their sex was consensual; but on Wednesday, Khalighi told Megyn Kelly that what Simmons told her in private does not match what he is saying in public.
“Russell and I have actually had a face-to-face confrontation about what happened, we’ve had phone conversations where there was no dispute about what we were talking about,” Khalighi told Kelly on Megyn Kelly Live. “And he actually apologized.”
Khalighi said that in 1991 she went back with Ratner and Simmons to a private residence in New York City and Simmons had forced her to perform oral sex on him. She said that she looked to Ratner for help and that Ratner seemed to be in on the assault as if they frequently tag-teamed women. Khalighi, then 17 years old, said she took a shower after the rape and Simmons entered the bathroom and forced anal sex on her.
“Part of what’s so confusing and re-traumatizing is that what he’s speaking about privately with me is completely different from what’s come out publicly,” Khalighi said to Megyn Kelly.” That’s the piece that’s been, quite honestly, repugnant hypocrisy and the lies and the denial.”
Khalighi said that the men had lured her to the apartment under the pretense that they were going to watch a music video together. At the time, Ratner was a popular music video director.
Khalighi said that she thought Ratner was her friend but was shocked when he just let her get assaulted by Simmons, who was in his 30s at the time.
“I looked over at Brett and asked for help, because I thought he was a friend,” Khalighi told Kelly. She said that she then realized that “this was their plan all along. There was no help that was gonna come.”
Simmons acknowledged that he and Khalighi had sex 26 years ago, but he maintains the sex was consensual.
“In my case, three witnesses [Anthony McNair and two anonymous witnesses] have signed statements that our experiences that weekend with Keri Claussen Khalighi 26 years ago were consensual. My longtime loathing of any form of violence and abuse has been woven into all of my personal interactions, as most who know me will attest,” Simmons wrote in The Hollywood Reporter. “In our meeting many years later, and subsequent conversations, Keri never accused me of what she has said publicly. She insisted I was not violent. She did tell me her boyfriend and many others found out about our long weekend together and she said she was ashamed by that discovery. I am sorry for the embarrassment she recounted to me.”