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Russell Simmons was served with papers related to a defamation lawsuit against him at a resort in Bali earlier this month.
Rap mogul Russell Simmons was “caught off guard” as he was reportedly served with papers connected to a defamation lawsuit filed by former Def Jam executive Drew Dixon at a resort earlier this month. According to reports, the process server, Daniel John Ayoub arrived at the Gdas Bali Health & Wellness Spa in Bali, Indonesia, on March 5 at 12:30 p.m. local time and managed to gain entry to a VIP area through two security checkpoints.
He sat in the restaurant area and was about to leave when Simmons arrived and sat with a group. Ayoub is quoted as saying he waited before serving Simmons, and informed him that the source of the papers were “from the State of New York.” Simmons is then quoted as responding “Ah s—t! F—!” before dropping the papers to the ground.
Ayoub then goes on record saying that he overheard Simmons calling someone on the phone, audibly flustered. “South African guy just handed me an envelope. And he’s with a big Black guy,” he said. “Should I open the doc now, or wait till later? How did these people get in here?” The server then exited the resort, which Simmons notably is a founder and investor of. Representatives for Simmons and Dixon had no comment when contacted by the press about the matter.
The defamation lawsuit was brought against Simmons in February by Dixon, a veteran music industry executive who also worked at Def Jam and alleges that he sexually assaulted her while working at the label. Dixon first made the claims while appearing in the On The Record documentary in 2020. She sued Simmons after comments that he made during a December 2023 appearance on the In Depth with Graham Besinger podcast about the allegations, which according to the documents of the lawsuit “continued a concerted and malicious campaign to discredit Ms. Dixon and to so damage her reputation that Ms. Dixon’s factual reporting of what he did to her would not be credited.”
Simmons is also facing another lawsuit filed in a New York federal court from a victim referred to as Jane Doe in February, who claims that her career and life were “disrupted and derailed by a devastating experience at the hands of Simmons in addition to false imprisonment, battery and causing emotional distress.
