Kimora Lee Simmons - Early Life

Early Life

Simmons was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Joanne Perkins, a Korean-born Japanese later worked as an administrator for Social Security. Joanne was adopted by an American serviceman during the Korean War and now goes by Kimora's maternal grandmother's Japanese name, Kyoko. Kimora's father, Vernon Whitlock Jr., is African American, has worked as a Federal Marshal, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigator, a bail bondsman, and is currently a barber in St. Louis. Her parents split up when she was very young and she was raised as an only child by her mother.

Growing up in the northern St. Louis suburb of Florissant, Missouri, Kimora was the target of schoolyard bullying and teasing, because of her height (she was 5 feet, 10 inches tall by the time she was 10 years old) and mixed ancestry. To help her, Simmons's mother enrolled her in a modeling class when she was eleven years old. Two years later she was discovered by Marie-Christine Kollock (a representative for seminal Paris Agency Glamour) at a Model Search in Kansas City (organized by Kay Mitchell) and sent to Paris.

Simmons is a graduate of Lutheran North High School in St. Louis, Missouri.