“I thought it was a fashion moment”

Angela Simmons has responded to the backlash she received for bringing a gun-shaped clutch to the 2024 BET Awards.

Simmons, who is the daughter of Run-DMC’s Rev Run, was criticised after attending the awards show wearing the gun-inspired accessory – but she later explained that she didn’t intend to “offend anyone” and simply saw the cover as a “fashion moment”.

Simmons, 36, apologized to anyone who was offended by her fashion accessory and also reminded her fans of her own tragic history with gun violence — in 2018, her ex-fiancé Sutton Tennyson was shot and killed.

Simmons, who shares six-year-old son Sutton Jr. with her late ex, told fans in an Instagram video: “So I see a lot of chatter around the purse that I wore to the awards and normally I don’t address the rumors and stuff, but I’m not like that.

“I’ve never been like that. I’m great, I’m not violent, I’ve obviously been through a lot in my personal life as far as gun violence and it’s very personal to me, but I just liked the bag and I thought it was cool and I thought it was a fashion moment and that’s it.

“I didn’t mean to offend anyone. It seems like everyone, or rather a few people, are a little upset. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Super, super peaceful. I’m sorry if it upset anyone, but that’s not me, that’s not who I am.”

Fans were not impressed to see Simmons, who is now dating rapper Yo Gotti, wearing the eye-catching accessory.

“She could have done without that damn clutch,” one posted. “Terrible bag choice,” another wrote.

“The Glock clutch is insane,” one wrote with a laughing crying emoji. “I can’t defend this one. I usually defend you.”

On the red carpet, Simmons boldly posed with the gun-shaped handbag, even pointing it as if she was about to pull the trigger.

The shoe designer beamed with happiness as she posed up a storm in a semi-sheer green Casze Atelier dress.

In a 2020 episode of Growing Up Hip Hop, Angela opened up about the painful moment she had to tell her son Sutton Jr. that his father had been killed.

“How do you explain to a three-year-old that you’re never going to see him again?” Simmons told life coach Chenoa Maxwell.

Simmons said she had to tell the child about his tragic death when the boy thought he saw his father in a vehicle similar to the one his father was driving.

“I was with my son, and I was very moved, even talking about it. He was looking out the window and he said to me: ‘Dad, white car,'” she recalls.

She continued: “I asked him, ‘Where do you see him?’ or ‘Who is dad? What does he look like?’

“I asked him. I said, ‘Do you want to see your father?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’

“So he came over and I started showing him videos and pictures and stuff, and he stopped,” Simmons said. “It’s not like he was still in the middle of a conversation, which is what makes it more emotional. He asked me, ‘Is he alive?’”

“He doesn’t even say the word ‘alive,’ so if he asks that, it’s like, wow. Did you really just say, ‘Is he alive?'”

“I was like, ‘No, he’s not,’” Simmons said. “This is the first time I’ve had to explain it to him, which is super sad, because he’s three. How do you explain to a three-year-old that he’s never going to see him again?”

“Except in my way, which is like, ‘He’s in heaven, he’s with God.’

Simmons said her son “kind of put his head on my chest and told me he was sad.”

“I never saw him emotional. He’s a happy kid, and all day long he was kind of sad and depressed. And I was like, ‘I get it. You’re okay. You’re okay.’ And he was like, ‘Okay, I get it.’ It was that conversation, but it was super hard to have that conversation with him.”