Music

A ‘Life-Changing Trauma’

For years, Franco dealt with her pain personally and alone, and tried as best as she could to avoid thinking about Simmons. “I did not follow Russell Simmons in any way. I was very averse to him and everything about him,” she says. Then came #MeToo. 

While Franco declined to discuss the specifics of her allegations — “Ms. Franco is reluctant to elaborate on her claims against Mr. Simmons, given his penchant for litigation,” her attorney, Andrew Wilson of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, tells Rolling Stone — she spoke openly prior to the resolution about the deep emotional toll of Simmons’ apparent failure to pay the settlement. 

“A lot of people were writing about their experiences with powerful men having abused them,” Franco tells Rolling Stone. She had come across accounts of women speaking out against Simmons and had learned about a documentary on him while it was already in progress. “I missed my opportunity to be in this film because it had already been done,” Franco says. “It was a letdown.”

Franco contended with economic and family hardships from a young age. The 50-year-old came to the U.S. with her family from the Dominican Republic at age 11, and describes the move as “a lot of trauma.” She and her siblings were separated and scattered into foster homes during the immigration process. Franco says she was “pretty much living on my own by the age of 14” and staying with friends in New York.  

She wanted to act, but her dyslexia and need to learn English on her own scared her from reading in public. But Franco, who ultimately became enmeshed in the downtown New York City arts world, taught herself by “reading The Outsiders with a dictionary, listening to the Smiths, and translating.”

The resilience carried forward. Franco kept up with Simmons’ accusers through social media and discovered the Adult Survivors Act. The 2022 New York state law created a one-year window for adult survivors of sexual misconduct to file civil claims against their alleged abusers that otherwise would have exceeded the statute of limitations. “It felt like divine intervention,” she says, sometimes twirling a ringlet around her finger when she speaks. “It felt crazy and it worked out. I felt like a little bit of my history was validated. It was amazing.”

The settlement addressed a sense of dehumanization that had weighed on her for years. “It’s like a life-shifting, life-changing trauma that makes you doubt who you are and your value and your worth, and it means so little to the person who traumatizes you, who abuses you; it means nothing to them,” she says. “They might not even fucking remember it. So to have that person have to admit, even if it’s just to get you off their back, that you existed … it’s incredibly important.”

Abernathy — who as Sheri Sher was a founding member of the pioneering all-female hip-hop group Mercedes Ladies — describes a sense of empowerment in her decision to come forward. The 64-year-old former rapper still delivers her words enthusiastically, often smiling as she recalls the group’s music. She tells Rolling Stone that she worried about reprisal amid her already turbulent life had she come forward back in the 1980s. Abernathy’s family, consisting of her mother and 10 siblings, constantly faced eviction in New York City. Writing was her solace. She was frequently scribbling in black-and-white-speckled notebooks, covering one side in rhymes and the other with diary-like missives.

During one eviction, Abernathy recalls, city marshals took her composition book. “That really hurt me,“ she says. She crossed paths with Simmons a few times while she was pushing hard for Mercedes Ladies’ success. She has previously said that Simmons attacked her one evening after luring her to his office under the false pretence of a business conversation. 

Abernathy alluded to the alleged rape in her 2008 autobiographical novel, Mercedes Ladies, but did not name Simmons despite her friends’ encouragement to do so. She mulled naming him for four months, but ultimately decided against it. “I felt that if I came out,” she tells Rolling Stone, “I would have a lot of trouble on my hands.”

That changed in late 2017. Following allegations against Harvey Weinstein that October, more women were coming forward with sexual misconduct claims against powerful men in the entertainment industry, including music, notably leading to the conviction of R&B star R. Kelly and sprawling allegations against Marilyn Manson. (Manson has denied the claims.)

Model Keri Claussen accused Simmons of sexual assault in a November 2017 article in the Los Angeles Times. Less than two weeks later, screenwriter Jenny Lumet alleged in The Hollywood Reporter that Simmons sexually assaulted her. Three women, including Dixon, accused Simmons of rape in a Dec. 13, 2017, New York Times article. (Simmons is fighting Dixon’s defamation suit, in part by insisting that his broad denials of sexual misconduct on a podcast did not directly name her.) 

“I felt that if I came out [in 2008], I would have a lot of trouble on my hands.”

Sherri Abernathy

That same day, Abernathy was one of five women who accused Simmons of misconduct in a Los Angeles Times article. “I never really expected that all these women would come out. I thought I was the only one,” she says. “When it came out, I felt a little bit of empowerment behind it. I thought there was never gonna be justice, but justice did come out.”

Simmons has repeatedly denied the claims, saying in 2017 that “these horrific accusations have shocked me to my core, and all of my relations have been consensual.” He apologized in another statement for being “thoughtless and insensitive.” Weeks earlier, he said that he had “never committed any acts of aggression or violence in my life. I would never knowingly cause fear or harm to anyone.” 

The settlement “wasn’t about money,” says Abernathy, noting how she didn’t name Simmons despite her book coming out at the height of his fame. “I’m not a money person. I always worked and kept paying my own way.” For Abernathy, who recently retired after working as a New York state court officer for 20 years, the settlement meant that Simmons was “being held to account for his actions.”

Abrams, a writer and survivor advocate, says she was surprised that there might be any way to get justice. “When I first heard of the Adult Survivors Act, I was shocked that it would even pass. I always held reservations about it as a mechanism for justice, because I know how extensive sexual victimization is in our society,” she says. “We treat it as if it is this aberration, and while it is aberrant, unfortunately it is common. And one of the things we’ve learned from #MeToo was how widespread this issue is. It’s not something that just happens on the fringes of society.”

Abrams, who has said that she came from a chaotic home, told The Hollywood Reporter that she met Simmons in 1989. She had moved to New York City the prior year, and was working as a nightclub hostess. (She also worked as an executive assistant at Def Jam in 1992.) A few years after meeting Simmons, they had sex at various points. In 1994, Abrams saw Simmons for what she believed was a platonic meeting. She had previously told him she no longer wanted a sexual relationship and he agreed to that, according to her interview with The Hollywood Reporter. When they were out that night, Abrams has previously said, she was drinking alcohol while Simmons drank sparkling water, claiming he was sober. 

Later that evening, Abrams asked Simmons to direct his driver to bring her home, but she was driven to his apartment instead. Abrams said that she passed out on his bed with her clothes on. Abrams, who has said she was wavering in and out of consciousness, alleged that Simmons raped her despite her repeatedly saying no, and then directed her to leave his apartment because he was waiting for a romantic interest to call him. 

‘Living a Nightmare’

In November 2023, it seemed like things would finally come to a close for the three women. Simmons signed settlements with Abrams, Abernathy, and Franco and agreed to an October 2024 deadline for payment. These settlement agreements were confidential — meaning that the women were legally barred from disclosing the amount or even the existence of a potential settlement. Nobody would know that he paid the women a dime, obviating the possibility of additional bad press. As part of these settlements, Simmons also signed paperwork attesting that he owed them the settlement money and confirming the payment deadline. 

Because these statements effectively validated the settlements, they should have expedited enforcement. The statements also stipulated that if Simmons didn’t pay, the women’s attorneys could file these statements — and the total amounts owed — in court and make them public. 

Simmons blew past the deadline without paying any of the women. The women’s attorneys filed these statements in October 2024, publicly revealing that he had brokered confidential agreements, alongside the amounts. “I was looking at my phone every day,” Franco says of waiting for Simmons’ payment. When she spoke to her attorney at the deadline and learned that he hadn’t paid, “it was devastating.”  

“It just made me feel crazy. I cried for days. I was completely incapacitated,” she tells Rolling Stone. “I didn’t work for a little bit, and not because I’m melodramatic and [not because] I’m a fucking take-to-my-bed person.” Franco was angry. The burden of that limbo, she says, was “like an anchor.”

Abernathy voices similar sentiments. After a “very tedious and long” process, she and Simmons had come to an agreement, and for her, it seemed like it would be as over as it could be. “I thought, and I’m quite sure the rest of the girls thought, that Russell was going to keep [his promise].” When he delayed payment for more than a year, all the while leaning harder into his Zen vibe and luxe tropical lifestyle on social media, “it was just like living a nightmare over and over.”

“How do you go from the godfather of hip-hop to this broken, cornered animal on this tiny island? That’s quite sad.”

Sil Lai Abrams

Last spring, Abernathy underwent brain surgery for an aneurysm and was “in the hospital fighting for my life.” As a result, Abernathy says she must avoid stress and keep her blood pressure down. She also needs a clear head for a hopeful Mercedes Ladies project. “I didn’t want myself to get upset,” she said at the time of the ongoing nonpayment. “I didn’t want to start crying again.”

Abrams says the past year touched on her longstanding reservations about the legal process: “With the Adult Survivors Act, my concern was that once these cases began to be settled through the civil courts, a pushback would come [with] the narrative that had always existed: that the intention of a survivor coming forward is monetary gain.”

She says she still decided to give it a shot, going into the negotiation “with an open mind.” She was baffled at Simmons’ delay in upholding the agreement, saying the situation “just [kept] him tethered to all of us.”

“How do you go from the godfather of hip-hop to this broken, cornered animal on this tiny island?” Abrams says. “That’s quite sad.”

Abrams says the entire situation points “to the limitations that civil suits can have on actually bringing survivors some measure of justice that’s intended.”

Remaining Optimistic

The whole point of coming to a settlement is to avoid lengthy lawsuits and trials that can cost both sides more money. Most settlements include confidentiality clauses that not only conceal the settlement figure, but also bar anyone involved from publicly discussing it. When someone doesn’t pay, collecting the owed money isn’t as straightforward as sending an angry letter. The person with the purse strings could decide to stall or skip out on their tab. Attorneys can take them to court. A judge can order payment. Banks can be forced to comply. But if the money isn’t readily available, getting it becomes a challenging process.

“A sophisticated, wealthy defendant often can hide their assets in a way that makes it very difficult for plaintiffs to collect,” explains Tabak, the Cohen & Gresser lawyer who helmed Hulk Hogan’s legal team in Gawker’s bankruptcy, resulting in a $31 million settlement. 

The state of Simmons’ finances remains unclear. For years, Simmons has been fighting his ex-wife, Kimora Lee, in court over millions of dollars in Celsius energy drink shares that the feds want to seize following the money-laundering conspiracy conviction of Kimora’s ex-husband Tim Leissner. (Through a rep, she declined to comment for this article.)

How exactly the Celsius case will play out is unknown — a recent court filing suggests that Simmons and Kimora might have come to some sort of agreement that’s yet to be finalized — but at the very least, Simmons has tens of millions on the line. Three of his accusers — Sallie, Baker, and Jones — have appeared in court filings as “interested parties” in the Celsius case, though it’s unclear if any of the disputed money would go to his accusers. 

Wilson, Franco’s attorney, has subpoenaed a business firm that works with Simmons for information about his finances. He has also subpoenaed one of Simmons’ daughters, Aoki Lee Simmons, for financial information. Wilson’s firm also sent Aoki Lee a letter dated April 4 warning that if she spent any of her father’s money, she could be on the hook for his nonpayment. (A rep for Aoki said he was not able to reach her for comment.)

Resolution aside, the months of waiting both took a toll and prompted questions for the women. “He has his freedom, technically, but he’s trapped in a prison of his own making, mentally and otherwise — he’s not dealing with reality,” Abrams said in July. “The reality is: He owes a significant number of people a significant amount of money. And that’s not going to get wiped away just because he chooses to hide on an island in the ocean.”