Aoki Lee Simmons Defends Pursuing Modeling While Attending Harvard

Aoki Lee Simmons wants the girls to know they can have brains and beauty. 

The Harvard student, 19, was recently asked by a fan on TikTok why she still wanted to model even though she was “so articulate and obviously educated” and Aoki—the youngest daughter of model Kimora Lee Simmons and record executive Russell Simmons—had the perfect response.

“Well, one, models aren’t uneducated and not articulate,'” she explained in the Aug. 1 post, “but two, I think what you’re really getting at is, ‘Why am I going into a field that doesn’t necessarily require a degree or require a whole lot of book smarts when I have a lot of education?'”

Aoki shared that though she loves modeling, it wasn’t her first passion. Due to her height, she used to play volleyball. “I think we should normalize you liking something,” she continued. “You don’t have to do what you’re immediately good at. You can be good at something and not want to do it forever.”