Internet reels as photos reveal stars’ extreme age-gap romance
These intimate holiday photos have sparked an internet controversy – and one party’s mother says she’s “on her last nerve.”
Photos of 21-year-old model Aoki Lee Simmons kissing her 65-year-old boyfriend on holiday have shocked the internet – and even appear to have provoked a furious response from the model’s own mum, fashion designer Kimora Lee.
Photos that have circulated over the weekend show Lee Simmons, who was born in 2002, frolicking on the beach at the Caribbean island of St Barts with her much older boyfriend, author and restaurateur Vittorio Assaf.
The age gap between the pair is 44 years, with Assaf only one year younger than Lee Simmons’ own father, music mogul Russell Simmons.
Lee Simmons posted photos from the tropical holiday on her Instagram – but left her older boyfriend out of the picture entirely. As paparazzi photos of the pair circulated, people flocked to her Instagram posts to tease her about the man she’d left out of her holiday snaps.
“These pics look like they were taken by a senior citizen,” one person wrote under her post.
“That’s what a picture looks like when a boomer takes it lol,” another person joked.
“Did your 65 yr old bf take these??” another person asked.
Assaf has also kept his twenty-something girlfriend out of his holiday photos, instead posting a photo to his Instagram from St Barth showing him spending time with a friend he revealed he’d know for 25 years.
But his efforts to keep the relationship under wraps were just as unsuccessful.
“Yall friendship older then ur girl,” one person quipped.
“You’ve been friends with him longer than @aokileesimmons has been alive,” another pointed out.
“I know you can hear Russell screaming from Bali. Because I can,” wrote another person, referencing Lee Simmons’ father.
And Lee Simmons’ mother, 48-year-old model and fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons, also appeared to address the controversy with a pointed Instagram post of her own.
She shared a video of a mother panda bear holding on to her cub and running to safety. “On my last nerve right now!” she captioned the not-so-cryptic clip, which she posted hours after the paparazzi photos were first published.
While Aoki’s mother might be on her “last nerve,” her father appeared to publicly support his daughter, posting a photo of the pair together as the story circulated.
“Unconditional love,” he captioned a throwback photo of he and his daughter – another post that was flooded with comments from people asking if Simmons was really OK with his daughter’s relationship.
Author and restaurateur Assaf has a rollercoaster romantic history: He hit the headlines back in 2001, the year before his current girlfriend was born, when his then-wife, former model Charlotte Bonstrom, left him after having an affair with her twin sister’s ex-husband, Thierry Gillier.