Kimora has limited communication with her kids’ fathers, but her ‘village’ of friends and family help her through single parenting.
Kimora feels she was destined for motherhood, and her life doesn’t revolve around a partner.
Kimora’s adult kids still see her as ‘mom’ and can always come home, as she returns to reality TV.
Kimora Lee Simmons is speaking candidly about her relationship–or lack thereof–with the fathers of her children.
Source: Jamie McCarthy / Getty
The entrepreneur and reality star talked about the lack of communication between her and her exes during a new interview with PEOPLE, admitting that she doesn’t “have a relationship really” with any of her kids’ fathers.
“Usually I would say that I co-parent okay, but the kids are with me full-time,” Simmons said. “I’m pretty much the primary parent. It’s difficult, but I don’t know sometimes what other people are thinking. Guys are weird.”
Simmons, 50, has daughters Ming Lee, 25, and Aoki Lee, 23, with her ex-husband, record executive Russell Simmons; son Kenzo Lee, 16, with actor Djimon Hounsou; and son Wolfe Lee, 10, with former investment banker Tim Leissner, who was sentenced to two years in prison recently after pleading guilty to bribery and money laundering.
Simmons is also a mother to son Gary Lee, 16, whom she adopted from Jamaica in 2020, and her “bonus son” Jayden, 19, who has been living with the family since he was in fourth grade.
Even though she’s not in touch with her kids’ fathers, Kimora gave a big shoutout to her “village” of “friends and family and people my kids can rely on” for helping her through being a single parent. The model also opened up about the fact that she feels she was always meant for motherhood.
“I’m always ‘the mom,’ ” Simmons told the outlet “I mother people all around me. When I hear people say to me, ‘I’ve come to you as a mom or best friend in my head,’ that’s what I live for.”
Kimora, who is currently happily single, says her “life doesn’t ever revolve around a guy, ever.”
“I am thankful I’m able to be there for my family in ways that other people or parents are not,” she says. “If I wasn’t this person, I don’t know if we would’ve made it or if we would be okay. It’s been very important to me to be strong and self-reliant, and to constantly be growing.”
While some of her children are adults now, Kimora insists that no matter how old they get, they know they can always come back home.
“Ming and Aoki are older, but I think they still feel very much like I’m ‘mom,’ and I think that’s okay,” she explains. “For sure they can come to me. They live at home, they travel the world and they have a place in New York.”
Kimora returned to reality TV after almost 15 years in her new E! series, Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane. The show serves as a follow-up to her first show, Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane, which ran from 2007-2011.
“It’s like a chapter two of life,” she says. “I do think things go in a cycle — it’s not just cliché. I’m living it.”
