In the past year, more than a dozen women have come forward to accuse Def Jam CEO and founder Russell Simmons of sexual harassment, and misconduct. That list continues to grow now that former A&R Drew Dixon is publically accusing Simmons of rape.
Speaking with Audie Cornish of Buzzfeed Profile, the Stanford University graduate detailed the challenging environment she worked in while at Def Jam and explained Simmons, who she describes as a predator, initially began making inappropriate comments.
One of Dixon’s first tasks at Def Jam was to produce a record for Slick Rick who was incarcerated at the time. Dixon said she took his daily calls from prison and would then have to conference in Simmons.
“In order to do my job, I had to talk to Russell as much as I possibly could, often on the phone. So I’d call him, I’d get connected to his cell phone and I would do a conference call with Slick Rick or with a manager, or a producer and then we would drop that call and we would sort of wait to conference in the next person and he would say something like ‘My d**k’s so hard listening to you on the phone.’ ”
Dixon alleged he would later apologize profusely, which soon became a pattern. According to Dixon, Simmons later became emboldened and once came into her office, locked the door and pushed her against the wall. To help intercept future unwanted sexual aggression, Dixon said she made a copy of her key and gave to a friend in the office and instructed her friend to come in whenever she called.
As the interview progressed Cornish queried Dixon if she thought she was hired for her looks, to which Dixon said no. Explaining she never saw herself in the same league as the women Simmons dated and naively assumed she was off limits.
Twelve minutes into the interview, Dixon details the night in 1995 when she alleges she was attacked by Simmons. Drew said after the successful release of an album, she went to an ATM to get cash and coincidently walked past Simmons’s home. He was standing outside on the phone and suggested she come upstairs to his apartment to listen to a new CD while he called a car for her to take her home. Dixon quickly realized Simmons set a trap.
“And then he appeared and he wasn’t wearing any clothes and it became very violent very quickly,” Dixon recalls.”
Watch the full 40-minute interview here where she speaks about life after the alleged rape.
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