Kimora Lee Simmons Fashion Business Dragged Into Husband’s Corruption Investigation
Kimora Lee Simmons Dragged Into Husband’s Corruption Investigation
It appears that Kimora Lee Simmons’ fashion business is being dragged into the legal drama surrounding her husband, Tim Leissner. According to a report:
The fashion line Kimora Lee Simmons launched three years ago could become a casualty of an international investigation of corruption in Malaysia.
Simmons — who was discovered at 14 by Karl Lagerfeld — has been married for three years to Tim Leissner, the banker who left Goldman Sachs under a cloud last year after raising $6.5 billion for a Malaysian development fund.
The FBI and investigators in four other countries are tracing hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly transferred to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his cronies.
“Goldman Sachs was paid exorbitant fees for selling the bonds,” one lawyer who has followed the case told me. “The prosecutors, if they do their job, will seek to claw back the commissions.”
It is widely believed that Leissner financed the launch of his wife’s eponymous fashion line. As Fashionista noted in 2014, “Unlike other brands that come into the designer market, Simmons has an unusually well-funded infrastructure.”
But she is best known for two reality shows, “Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane” and “Kimora: House of Fab.”
Kimora’s fashion line — sold online and at a boutique in Beverly Hills, Calif., with tops going for $550 — can’t be profitable, no matter how beautiful her designs are, retail experts told me.
“She’s off the map. She’s not in any department stores,” one said. And Leissner might not continue to subsidize the operation.
Kimora has yet to respond publicly about the situation.
She shares two daughters from her marriage with Russell Simmons, a son with actor Djimon Hounsou, and her youngest son with Leissner.
Follow us: @theJasmineBRAND on Twitter | theJasmineBRAND on Facebook| theJasmineBRAND_ on Instagram