Kimora Lee Simmons on Co-Parenting Dynamics with Her Youngsters’ Fathers

Kimora Lee Simmons is setting the report straight on the place she stands along with her exes.

The model-turned-fashion mogul and actuality star, 50, tells PEOPLE on this week’s subject, on newsstands Friday, that she does not “have a relationship actually” along with her children’ fathers.

“Often I might say that I co-parent okay, however the children are with me full-time,” says Simmons. “I am just about the first mother or father. It is tough, however I do not know generally what different persons are considering. Guys are bizarre.”

Simmons has daughters Ming Lee, 25, and Aoki Lee, 23, along with her ex-husband, report government Russell Simmons; son Kenzo Lee, 16, with actor Djimon Hounsou; and son Wolfe Lee, 10, with former funding banker Tim Leissner, who was sentenced to 2 years in jail earlier this 12 months after pleading responsible to bribery and cash laundering costs.

Simmons can also be mother to son Gary Lee, 16, whom she adopted from Jamaica in 2020, and her “bonus son” Jayden, 19, who has lived with the household since he was in fourth grade.

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Regardless of not being in contact with the children’ fathers, Simmons credit her “village” of “family and friends and folks my children can depend on” for serving to her by. Plus, she feels she was at all times made for motherhood.

“I’m at all times ‘the mother,’ ” Simmons tells PEOPLE. “I mom individuals throughout me. Once I hear individuals say to me, ‘I’ve come to you as a mother or finest good friend in my head,’ that’s what I dwell for.”

Now fortunately single, Simmons says her “life doesn’t ever revolve round a man, ever.”

“I’m grateful I can be there for my household in ways in which different individuals or mother and father are usually not,” she says. “If I wasn’t this individual, I do not know if we’d’ve made it or if we’d be okay. It has been crucial to me to be robust and self-reliant, and to always be rising.”

And regardless of how previous her children get, they know they will at all times come residence to her.

“Ming and Aoki are older, however I believe they nonetheless really feel very very like I am ‘mother,’ and I believe that is okay,” she says. “For positive they will come to me. They dwell at residence, they journey the world and so they have a spot in New York.”

After practically 15 years, Simmons is again on actuality TV in her new E! collection Kimora: Again within the Fab Lane. It serves as a follow-up to her first present Kimora: Life within the Fab Lane, which ran from 2007-2011.

“It’s like a chapter two of life,” she says. “I do assume issues go in a cycle — it’s not simply cliché. I’m residing it.”

Kimora: Again within the Fab Lane airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on E!

For extra on Simmons, decide up the most recent subject of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe right here.