Kamala Harris accused of bullying Nina Simone’s daughter to the point she ‘almost killed herself’
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United States Vice-President Kamala Harris is facing serious allegations from her days as California attorney general. ReAnna Simone Kelly, granddaughter of legendary singer Nina Simone, has claimed that the politician bullied her mother, Lisa Simone, to the point where she “almost killed herself.”
Kelly detailed the incident in a Twitter thread on Saturday, alleging that Harris’s actions caused their family to lose her grandmother’s estate which was then given to “white people.”
“Nina’s granddaughter here. My family doesn’t run her estate anymore. It was taken away from us [and] given to white people. Our family name was DRAGGED in the media. We get NO royalties, nothing. Wanna hold someone accountable? Ask Kamala Harris why she came for my family,” Kelly wrote.
Kelly was retweeting a post that asked why the estate has made a Twitter account in Nina’s name, even though the musician passed away in 2003, three years before the platform was launched. She added in her thread: “Ask her why she separated my family. Ask her why my grandmother’s estate is in SHAMBLES now. Ask her why we as her family no longer own the rights to anything.”
Referring to her mother Lisa Simone’s struggles during the “California vs Simone” case, Kelly wrote: “Ask her (Harris) why she bullied my mother in court and my mom almost killed herself from the depression.”
Lisa, the only child of the late musician and civil rights activist, and a musician herself, has yet to react to the revelations made by her daughter. However, Kelly mentioned in her thread that she deleted it at first and reposted it after getting the approval of her family.
“Ask her why my mother had a gag order put on her and can not speak on these things. Ask her why she didn’t even want my mom to be able to say she was Nina Simone’s daughter. Ask her why she wanted us to walk away with NOTHING,” Kelly further wrote about Harris.
In a 2016 settlement regarding the Nina Simone Charitable Trust, Lisa was held accountable for breaching her “fiduciary duty to the Estate and to the Charitable Trust and wrongfully diverted Estate assets.” The settlement makes several references to Harris for her “primary responsibility for supervising charitable trusts in California” as state attorney general, reports Fox News.
“The Attorney General seeks to surcharge Kelly for amounts totaling $5,937,749.42 plus over $2.5 million in interest, which the Attorney General contends is far more than one-half of the Estate’s value during [Lisa Simone]’s administration of the Estate,” the settlement reads.
“Do your research if you like, but know that there is A LOT of slander out there on my mother. There was a lot of false information put out there that is NOT TRUE. Listen. WE LIVED IT. We are still living in the aftermath of this,” Kelly added in her Twitter thread, noting that Nina’s own “family is living paycheck to paycheck” even though so many artists make a profit off her fame by covering her songs.
Kelly also noted that her grandmother’s song was played at Harris’s inauguration as the Vice President of the country, and claimed that “she knew what she was doing.”
