Russell Simmons Recovers Celsius Drink Stock After Legal Battle Tied to Malaysian Bond Fraud
Russell Simmons is getting access to valuable stock in the energy drink brand Celsius after a stranger-than-fiction legal saga that pitted the Def Jam founder against his ex-wife, her now-incarcerated second husband and the Department of Justice.
Court papers docketed on Monday (Aug.
24) and first reported by Billboard say Simmons can recover some of the nearly 10 million Celius shares that are in DOJ possession as part of the federal prosecution of Tim Leissner , a former Goldman Sachs banker and the second husband of Simmons’ ex-wife, Kimora Lee Simmons .
It’s not disclosed what percentage Simmons is receiving from these shares, which are currently worth more than $350 million in total.
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Court records obtained by Billboard show that as of 2025, the record executive owed more than $11 million in past-due settlements to six women, some of whom have publicly accused him of sexual assault.
He previously agreed to spend at least $8.6 million of the recovered Celsius shares satisfying these debts.
The legal saga dates back to 2015, when Simmons, Lee Simmons and Leissner went in together on 3.3 million Celsius shares for a total of $3 million.
The investment turned out to be quite shrewd; a Celsius stock split in 2023 tripled the amount of shares, and they’ve soared in value over the last decade.
When the markets closed on Tuesday (Aug.
25), Celsius was trading at $35.40 per share.
The trouble arose when Leissner was arrested on federal criminal charges in 2018 for helping orchestrate a massive Malaysian bond fraud known as the 1MDB scandal.
He put the lucrative Celsius stock up for bail and ultimately forfeited the shares to pay off his financial penalties upon pleading guilty.
This set off years of litigation between Simmons, Lee Simmons, Leissner, and the DOJ over the fate of the sum.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.billboard.com — the content belongs to Billboard.
