Kimora: Back In The Fab Lane
Versant Media
Kimora Lee Simmons is a certified boss, plain and simple. The model-turned-mogul and undisputed queen of fabulosity has returned to E! Entertainment Television with a new reality series, which premiered on December 2nd, “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane.” This series comes after a decades-long hiatus from reality television as Simmons first appeared on the network with reality show, “Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane,” in the early 2000s.
Back then, the show chronicled her life and career, including life at home with her children and in her design office, where she worked on her successful clothing lines like Baby Phat and KLS. Now, Simmons is doing more of the same while being a single mom of five, commanding an empire by running multiple businesses, including her iconic Baby Phat brand, which is now 25 years old. Her daughters, Ming Lee and Aoki Lee Simmons, have grown up under the audience’s eyes and are now college graduates, models, and entrepreneurs in their own right, proudly following in their mother’s footsteps.
Between dealing with the whims of her adventure-seeking daughters, cheering her sons at their championship games, and celebrating her own major milestones, Simmons’ world is even more fabulous and outrageous than ever before. She says the show, which revolves around her family life, is intentional, as she wanted to showcase her journey as a single mom and successful entrepreneur while stressing the importance of resilience and inspiration. “I think it’s important that you can see people on television that you identify with, that you look up to, or you’re kind of into what they’re doing. And I don’t think it needs to be in a train-wreck-y way to make the viewer or someone else feel better. You don’t need to be a train wreck. You don’t need to be faux fabulous. You don’t need to do anything that makes you feel bad. I inspire people to look and feel good and create wonderful things,” she said to me during our Zoom interview.
Simmons also wanted her new series to reintroduce herself and her many businesses (Baby Phat, Pellequr, an upscale Korean spa in Los Angeles, and a lucrative investment in Celsius Holdings Inc.) to newer audiences, and the show successfully shows her rise through trials and tribulations, including a few divorces. Elevation and consistency are key in Simmons’ life, as well as authenticity. Simmons says, “It’s wonderful” to know she’s inspired a generation through her previous reality show and hopes to continue that work with her new series. “I think it’s wonderful, and it’s one way that I gauge success, is when people give me their stories of triumph and how I’ve helped them move their needle to achieve their personal best and expand their horizon,” she reflected. “It’s impactful to hear people say, ‘My life changed. I wrote this story. I got out of an abusive relationship, or marriage, or relationship, and I started this business.’ The point is, whatever it is that you’re thinking, you can elevate that, and whatever it is that you’re doing, you can use that to elevate others.”
She continued, “I want the viewers to be inspired to uplift their family and others around them, to be the best versions of themselves, and to have a little fun doing it. I don’t want them to take life too seriously. That’s the point about living in the fab lane. It’s not that serious. You can brush a lot off your shoulders and smile when you didn’t think you were beautiful. I want people to know that. We’re just on a journey together, and I love it here.”
Simmons believes it’s essential to show the grand scheme of her life, the chaos of running businesses, parenting, and overcoming challenges, so that people who look up to her know that she’s human and relatable just like them. “That’s the whole idea of reality. It’s kind of this all-encompassing world. I’ve always been a working mom. I really thought when I was a very young bride that that was it for me. There could have been no jobs or businesses for me,” she expressed. “And that’s fine too. And I have a lot of friends who are stay-at-home moms, but they are definitely looking for more, as they also have other aspirations and wishes and things they want to do. So hopefully we’re helping some of the moms do that. But I’ve always been that woman who works and has had my kids with me.”
While Simmons does have a hectic work life, managing several businesses at once, she’s clear that her job as a mother to her five children and bonus son Jayden, and inspiring them to go after their dreams, is her main priority. “Kenzo was born on the last show, and now he’s 16, and driving, he was 15 and a half when we began this process. Now Ming Lee has a fragrance brand named Boulangerie,” she said. Simmons acknowledges that her television series are getaways into an aspirational lifestyle. “If I can encourage other people to start their own business to get out there and do something that they were dreaming of doing, and to help them understand that you can do it, that’s amazing. I have the blueprint.”
Simmons certainly does have the blueprint. As an early adopter of striving for an aspirational lifestyle and “having it all,” as a businesswoman and mother, she’s carved out her own lane in entrepreneurship and success, defined as “fabulosity” and living life in the fab lane. “I define ‘fabulosity’ as a state of being, a state of mind, a state of being fabulous. It’s all encompassing. It is a state of being. It’s knowing that you can get things done, accomplish these things, do things for yourself, and be resilient, beautiful, fabulous, and smart at the same time. And don’t be afraid to let that shine or show, don’t dim down your light. Everyone is capable of it. Everybody can attain that. It’s achievable. You can do it and I’m living proof of that,” she stated.
Throughout the years, she’s gained invaluable insights and resilience from life’s ups and downs and plans to share sage wisdom with viewers of “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane.” “I’ve been married three times. I thought of my first marriage, ‘This is the end.’ I was part of one of the premier African-American families in America. I thought, ‘I’m messing it up for the world. I’m messing it up. I’m making my kids a statistic,” she vulnerably revealed. “But look at me, I’m actually more fabulous now. I’ve actually shed a lot of weight, figuratively and literally. I’ve shed a lot of dead weight. So the very things that you may think you’re afraid of, embrace them. You’ll be okay. Learn the lessons now. Let’s not leave a dumb dumb. Let’s leave enriched. Let’s leave the room and enrich others. Let’s leave it better than how we entered, but always fight and advocate for yourself, because not everyone or anyone will do that for you.”
Watch “Kimora: Back in the Fab Lane” on E!, airing weekly on Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. ET.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominiquefluker/2025/12/04/kimora-lee-simmons-on-returning-to-reality-tv-and-remaining-fabulous-as-a-mom-and-mogul/
