Spike Lee Slams Russell Simmons For Producing Mock Harriet Tubman Sex Tape
The video appeared on Simmons' new All Def Digital YouTube channel, and depicts Tubman in a raunchy encounter with a white slaveowner. She recruits a black male to secretly film it, so they can blackmail her "Massa" into letting her run the Underground Railroad.
As a result, Lee lashed out against Simmons on Twitter:
Shortly after, Simmons issued an apology on GlobalGrind.com and took down the video at the request of "buddies from the NAACP."
"I’m a very liberal person with thick skin. My first impression of the Harriet Tubman piece was that it was about what one of actors said in the video, that 162 years later, there’s still tremendous injustice. And with Harriet Tubman outwitting the slave master? I thought it was politically correct," Russell wrote. "Silly me. I can now understand why so many people are upset."
Simmons also addressed the misogyny, saying, "I would never condone violence against women in any form, and for all of those I offended, I am sincerely sorry."
The video is too graphic to post here, but you can watch a dug-up version on YouTube [NSFW].
Here's what happened...
Harriet Tubman tells her cohort that this is their "only chance to gain freedoms."
He jumps into the closet with a video camera and Tubman walks out of the room.
She lures her white slavemaster into the bedroom and says, "Oh, Massa, all these years I been actin' like I didn't love our special time together. Tonight that's all going to be different."
Tubman mounts the slavemaster and shouts, "I'mma set you free."
He attempts post-coital pillow talk, but Tubman quickly turns off the charm.
When the slaveowner scolds her for taking a tone, she spits back, "Massa, I've got what you white folks call leverage, and I'mma be telling everybody about your N---- loving."
Just as the slavemaster retorts that no one will believe her, the cameraman reveals himself.
At the end of the video, the actors reappear. "We'd like to thank y'all for watching Russell Simmons' All Def Digital," the man at center says.
Simmons tweeted his apologies, as well: