Hip-hop “impresario” Russell Simmons knows what frontin’ is all about when it comes to making claims about his Phat Farm clothing empire:
Under questioning from a plaintiff’s lawyer as part of a lawsuit involving a longtime business partner, Mr. Simmons told of what he described as “the amount of hype that goes on when I discuss the value of Phat Farm,” according to the transcript.
“It is how you develop an image for companies. So in other words, you give out false statements to mislead the public so they will then increase in their mind the value of your company,” Mr. Simmons said.
What this means is that, if you heard Simmons say, as he did in February 2003, this Phat Fashions was “doing $350 million” in sales, he really meant to say “$14.3 million.”
I especially love this quote:
Yet at another point, shortly before he was to be asked about comments he made to The New York Times in 2003, he asked, suddenly: “It is not going to come out, right, about me lying to everybody? Right?”
Fortunately, this article is in the Times’ business section, which no one from Gawker or Page Six reads. As of today, neither column has picked up on the story.
