In Open Letter, Russell Simmons Urges Former Friend Donald Trump to ‘Wake the F— Up’

Hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur Russell Simmons recently penned an open letter to President Donald Trump in a manner only few could do.

Simmons, who became friends with then-real estate mogul Donald Trump in the 1990s through the New York social scene, in a letter appearing in the New York Daily News,  pleads with the president to hark back to the days when he helped crown a Muslim Miss USA or an African Miss Universe, or when he dated African-American model Kara Young.

Back then, Simmons called Trump a friend, and in the letter, asks where is that person today.

“Do you remember all of your New York Jewish and African-American friends you probably spent more time hanging out with than all the WASPs you could find,” Simmons said in the letter. “Do you remember that guy? I do. That was the Donald I called friend. That is the Donald I know. Where is he now? I have to believe he is still in there, somewhere.”

In the letter, Simmons warned Trump about the dangers of his apathy toward condemning the white supremacy and neo-Nazi demonstrators in Charlottesville, which observers say has empowered the hate groups.

“On the road you are on, old friend, the Trump name will come to be regarded in American history as a wannabe dictator who surrounded himself with bigots, white supremacists and money-hungry wolves,” Simmons wrote.

“If you do not change your course immediately, you will go down in history as the great divider, the destroyer of the environment and the embodiment of everything we as Americans have fought so hard to call ours,” he continued.

Both ambitious businessmen from Queens, NY, Simmons and Trump hit it off and were frequently photographed together at galas and other social events in the 1990s and early 2000s. Simmons attended Trump’s 2005 wedding to Melania, and Trump attended Simmons’ Art For Life charity benefit in Palm Beach, FL in 2007.

However, Trump’s political aspirations, launched with him leading the birther movement against President Barack Obama, drove a wedge between the two that was further divided by Trump’s racially charged 2016 presidential campaign.

Unlike most in the opposition movement, Simmons says he thinks Trump has the ability to reverse his course as president.

“The good news for you is you are still in office,” Simmons wrote in the letter. “You can turn this around. You can beat down racists and bigots, you can stop putting money into coal, stop destroying our environment, stop worsening climate change by empowering the factory farming industry. It is time to wake him the f— up.”

Check out earlier Human Nature interview with Russell Simmons where we ask him about his friendship with Donald Trump.