Samantha Ronson
Encyclopedia
Samantha Judith Ronson is an English
singer-songwriter
and disc jockey
who lives in Los Angeles, California
.
and raised in St John's Wood
. When Ronson was aged six her parents broke up and she moved with her siblings, mother and her mother's new partner, Foreigner
guitarist Mick Jones
, to New York City
, with her mother later marrying Jones. She is the daughter of writer-socialite
Ann Dexter-Jones and music executive and real estate entrepreneur Laurence Ronson. Her parents are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with ancestors from Russia
, Lithuania
and Austria
. Ronson's family name was originally Aaronson
but her grandfather Henry Ronson changed it to Ronson. Ronson is related to former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind
and Leon Brittan (Lord Brittan of Spennithorne), and is the younger sister of music producer Mark Ronson
and the twin sister of fashion designer Charlotte Ronson
Ronson also has five younger half-siblings and one step-sibling. Chris (step-sibling), Alexander and Annabelle, through her mother's remarriage to Mick Jones as well as David, Henrietta, and Joshua, through her father's remarriage to model Michele First. Her paternal uncle and aunt are Gerald
and Dame Gail Ronson
. Ronson's stepfather Mick Jones contributed to a childhood surrounded by music. This marriage produced Ronson's two younger half siblings Alexander and Annabelle. Ann and Mick divorced in 2007. At age sixteen Samantha Ronson was in a rap group called the Low Lifes.
's New Year's Eve 2001 show from the network's studios in Times Square
. In 2002, it was announced Duncan Sheik
would be co-producing an album for Ronson that would be out in the spring. In 2004, she opened for JC Chasez on his Schizophrenic tour.
Ronson became the first rock act signed to Roc-A-Fella Records
. She released four songs under the label "Super" with very little public interest: "Pull My Hair Out", "Fool", "If It's Gonna Rain" and "Built This Way," and wrote and recorded her first album, Red. "Built This Way" was featured in the movie Mean Girls
starring Lindsay Lohan
and Rachel McAdams
. Although Red was never officially released, downloads were made available from her MySpace
page. Ronson has also made a number of appearances on mix tapes produced by artists on the Roc-A-Fella label. In a January 2008 interview with MTV News, it was revealed Ronson had parted ways with her label and is currently focusing on DJing. She is or was a co-owner of the New York City
nightclub The Plumm
, along with actor Chris Noth
and Noel Ashman, among others.
crashed her Mercedes-Benz
in Beverly Hills. Police found a "small amount" of cocaine
in her car and blog
ger Perez Hilton
posted on his blog that the drugs belonged to Ronson, using another celebrity gossip blog as a source for the story. Two weeks later he started selling "Blame Samantha" t-shirts and called Ronson a "lezbot dj". Ronson hired Martin Garbus
to start a defamation suit against Hilton and the original source for the story, Celebrity Babylon. Celebrity Babylon agreed to issue a retraction and apology on the understanding that Ronson would drop the claim; Hilton's lawyers asked the judge to throw out the case as an assault on his free speech
rights. Garbus thought that it would be impossible to produce evidence that Hilton had acted with malice and reached an agreement with Hilton which would have kept Ronson from paying his legal fees. Ronson wanted Hilton's retraction and vetoed the proposal. Around the same time Garbus presented a $100,000 bill after the $25,000 retainer had been accounted for. Garbus withdrew from the case and neither he nor Ronson appeared at Hilton's hearing, where the judge ruled in Hilton's favour dismissing the case and ordering Ronson to pay Hilton's $85,000 legal fees. Two weeks later Garbus sued Ronson in New York for close to $142,000 in fees and services. He later dropped that suit. In May, Ronson filed suit against Garbus in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contending that his incompetence had lost the case against Hilton and asking for damages in excess of $300,000. Among the allegations was that Garbus failed to fulfill his duties as her attorney because he was focused on collecting his fees. In response to Ronson's malpractice suit he countersued to recover his fees.
On August 1, 2011, Ronson was pulled over in Baker, California
, while driving her Porsche Targa back home from Las Vegas. She was stopped for driving 89 m.p.h. in a 70 m.p.h. speed zone, initially but was given a balance test, since she seemed impaired. She was arrested for 2 misdemeanors for driving under the influence. Police claimed Ronson was cooperative and friendly.
, who were regularly seen being affectionate in public. Several newspapers, including The Times
and the Los Angeles Times
, published opinion pieces describing their relationship as romantic. Lohan long refrained from commenting on the exact nature of their relationship, stating through her publicist that she "wants to keep her private life private." When pressed by a paparazzo to deny the rumours, Ronson responded, "Are you retarded?"
In September 2008, it was widely reported that Lohan confirmed on the syndicated radio program, Loveline
, that she was, in fact, dating Ronson. During the program, DJ Stryker
asked "You and Samantha have been going out for how long now?...Like two years, one year, five months, two months?" to which Lohan laughed, and replied "For a very long time." Stryker then went on to say "Well, I hope you guys stay together. You are a very lovely looking couple", to which Lohan replied, "Thank you very much." Lohan's publicist originally stated that there was no confession; however, on 14 October, following a tabloid report by Britain
's Daily Mail
that claimed Lohan and Ronson's relationship was "on the rocks", Lohan's publicist told Access Hollywood
that the report was inaccurate and, "They are fine." When personally asked by a paparazzo, Ronson responded, "Are you fucking kidding me!?"
Lohan's father, Michael Lohan
, has been very outspoken in his disapproval of Lohan's lesbian relationship with Ronson and, on 24 September 2008, Lohan wrote a response to him via e-mail to the New York Post
: "Samantha is not evil, I care for her very much and she's a wonderful girl.... She loves me, as I do her."
Lohan opened up about her relationship with Ronson in the December 2008 issue of Harper's Bazaar
magazine. She stated, "I think it's pretty obvious who I'm seeing... I think it's no shock to anyone that it's been going on for quite some time... She's a wonderful person and I love her very much."
On 6 April 2009, Lohan announced that she was taking a break from seeing Ronson to focus on work. Ronson stated, in a July 2010 interview with The Times
, that she loves Lohan as a human being, but the paparazzi attention grew to be too much, saying "I'm not gonna not hang out with somebody that I care about because of that s**t." She also stated "I’m not gay! I’m an equal-opportunity player! I still go back and forth."
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and disc jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
who lives in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
.
Biography
Ronson was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and raised in St John's Wood
St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...
. When Ronson was aged six her parents broke up and she moved with her siblings, mother and her mother's new partner, Foreigner
Foreigner (band)
Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976 by veteran English musicians Mick Jones and ex-King Crimson member Ian McDonald along with American vocalist Lou Gramm...
guitarist Mick Jones
Mick Jones (Foreigner)
Michael Leslie "Mick" Jones is an English guitarist, songwriter, and record producer best known as the founding member of the rock band Foreigner.-Life and career:...
, to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, with her mother later marrying Jones. She is the daughter of writer-socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
Ann Dexter-Jones and music executive and real estate entrepreneur Laurence Ronson. Her parents are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with ancestors from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Ronson's family name was originally Aaronson
Aaronson
Aaronson is a Jewish patronymic surname, meaning "son of Aaron". It is unknown as a given name. Aaronson or its variants may refer to:* Irving Aaronson , American jazz pianist* Kenny Aaronson , American bass guitar player...
but her grandfather Henry Ronson changed it to Ronson. Ronson is related to former British Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Malcolm Rifkind
Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind KCMG QC MP is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Kensington. He served in various roles as a cabinet minister under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major, including Secretary of State for Scotland , Defence Secretary and...
and Leon Brittan (Lord Brittan of Spennithorne), and is the younger sister of music producer Mark Ronson
Mark Ronson
Mark Daniel Ronson is an English DJ, guitarist, music producer, artist and co-founder of Allido Records. He currently works with his band under the music alias of Mark Ronson & The Business Intl....
and the twin sister of fashion designer Charlotte Ronson
Charlotte Ronson
Charlotte Julia Ronson is an English fashion designer who currently resides in New York, NY.-C. Ronson:Ronson always had an interest in fashion, however, she began designing after friends asked her to create pieces for them...
Ronson also has five younger half-siblings and one step-sibling. Chris (step-sibling), Alexander and Annabelle, through her mother's remarriage to Mick Jones as well as David, Henrietta, and Joshua, through her father's remarriage to model Michele First. Her paternal uncle and aunt are Gerald
Gerald Ronson
Gerald Maurice Ronson is a British business tycoon and philanthropist.-Career:Aged 15, Ronson left school and joined his father in the family furniture business, named Heron after his father Henry. The company expanded into other activities; in the mid-1960s Ronson brought the first self-service...
and Dame Gail Ronson
Gail Ronson
Dame Gail Ronson, DBE is a British leading charity fundraiser and the wife of businessman Gerald Ronson. She is also an aunt by marriage to Mark, Samantha and Charlotte Ronson.She has contributed and supported the following:...
. Ronson's stepfather Mick Jones contributed to a childhood surrounded by music. This marriage produced Ronson's two younger half siblings Alexander and Annabelle. Ann and Mick divorced in 2007. At age sixteen Samantha Ronson was in a rap group called the Low Lifes.
Career
Ronson spun live for MTVMTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's New Year's Eve 2001 show from the network's studios in Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
. In 2002, it was announced Duncan Sheik
Duncan Sheik
Duncan Scott Sheik is an American singer-songwriter and composer. Sheik initially found success as a singer, most notably for his 1996 debut single "Barely Breathing". He later expanded his work to include compositions for motion pictures and the Broadway stage, leading him to involvement in the...
would be co-producing an album for Ronson that would be out in the spring. In 2004, she opened for JC Chasez on his Schizophrenic tour.
Ronson became the first rock act signed to Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Today it operates as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and is distributed by Island Def Jam Motown Music Group.-Formation and Early Years:...
. She released four songs under the label "Super" with very little public interest: "Pull My Hair Out", "Fool", "If It's Gonna Rain" and "Built This Way," and wrote and recorded her first album, Red. "Built This Way" was featured in the movie Mean Girls
Mean Girls
Mean Girls is a 2004 American teen comedy-drama film directed by Mark Waters. The screenplay was written by Tina Fey and is based in part on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman, which describes how female high school social cliques operate and the effect they can have...
starring Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, pop singer and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11...
and Rachel McAdams
Rachel McAdams
Rachel Anne McAdams is a Canadian actress. After graduating from a theatre program at York University, Toronto in 2001, she worked steadily as an actress until finding fame in 2004 with starring roles in teen comedy Mean Girls and romantic drama The Notebook...
. Although Red was never officially released, downloads were made available from her MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page. Ronson has also made a number of appearances on mix tapes produced by artists on the Roc-A-Fella label. In a January 2008 interview with MTV News, it was revealed Ronson had parted ways with her label and is currently focusing on DJing. She is or was a co-owner of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
nightclub The Plumm
The Plumm
The Plumm was a nightclub near the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. It was co-owned by Noel Ashman, Chris Noth, Samantha Ronson, Joey McIntyre, Damon Dash, Jesse Bradford, and Simon Rex amongst others and was a popular celebrity hangout....
, along with actor Chris Noth
Chris Noth
Christopher David "Chris" Noth is an American actor. He is known for long-running television roles as Det. Mike Logan on the police procedural and legal drama television series, Law & Order and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and as Big on Sex and the City. For the latter role, he has been...
and Noel Ashman, among others.
Legal actions
In May 2007, Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, pop singer and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11...
crashed her Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...
in Beverly Hills. Police found a "small amount" of cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
in her car and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger Perez Hilton
Perez Hilton
Mario Armando Lavandeira, Jr. , better known as Perez Hilton , is an American blogger and television personality. His blog, Perezhilton.com , is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities...
posted on his blog that the drugs belonged to Ronson, using another celebrity gossip blog as a source for the story. Two weeks later he started selling "Blame Samantha" t-shirts and called Ronson a "lezbot dj". Ronson hired Martin Garbus
Martin Garbus
Martin Garbus is an American attorney. He has tried cases throughout the country involving constitutional, criminal, copyright, and intellectual property law. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as trial and appellate courts throughout the United States...
to start a defamation suit against Hilton and the original source for the story, Celebrity Babylon. Celebrity Babylon agreed to issue a retraction and apology on the understanding that Ronson would drop the claim; Hilton's lawyers asked the judge to throw out the case as an assault on his free speech
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
rights. Garbus thought that it would be impossible to produce evidence that Hilton had acted with malice and reached an agreement with Hilton which would have kept Ronson from paying his legal fees. Ronson wanted Hilton's retraction and vetoed the proposal. Around the same time Garbus presented a $100,000 bill after the $25,000 retainer had been accounted for. Garbus withdrew from the case and neither he nor Ronson appeared at Hilton's hearing, where the judge ruled in Hilton's favour dismissing the case and ordering Ronson to pay Hilton's $85,000 legal fees. Two weeks later Garbus sued Ronson in New York for close to $142,000 in fees and services. He later dropped that suit. In May, Ronson filed suit against Garbus in Los Angeles County Superior Court, contending that his incompetence had lost the case against Hilton and asking for damages in excess of $300,000. Among the allegations was that Garbus failed to fulfill his duties as her attorney because he was focused on collecting his fees. In response to Ronson's malpractice suit he countersued to recover his fees.
On August 1, 2011, Ronson was pulled over in Baker, California
Baker, California
Baker is a census-designated place located in San Bernardino County, California, USA. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 735.Baker was founded as a station on the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad in 1908,...
, while driving her Porsche Targa back home from Las Vegas. She was stopped for driving 89 m.p.h. in a 70 m.p.h. speed zone, initially but was given a balance test, since she seemed impaired. She was arrested for 2 misdemeanors for driving under the influence. Police claimed Ronson was cooperative and friendly.
Relationship with Lindsay Lohan
In 2008, media outlets began commenting on Ronson and actress Lindsay LohanLindsay Lohan
Lindsay Lohan is an American actress, pop singer and model. She began her career as a child fashion model before making her motion picture debut in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap at the age of 11...
, who were regularly seen being affectionate in public. Several newspapers, including The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, published opinion pieces describing their relationship as romantic. Lohan long refrained from commenting on the exact nature of their relationship, stating through her publicist that she "wants to keep her private life private." When pressed by a paparazzo to deny the rumours, Ronson responded, "Are you retarded?"
In September 2008, it was widely reported that Lohan confirmed on the syndicated radio program, Loveline
Loveline
Loveline is a syndicated radio call-in program in North America, offering medical and relationship advice to listeners, often with the assistance of guests, typically actors and musicians. Its flagship station is KROQ-FM in Los Angeles....
, that she was, in fact, dating Ronson. During the program, DJ Stryker
Stryker (disc jockey)
Theodore "Ted" Ramón Stryker known on-air as simply "Stryker", is an American radio personality and disc jockey.-Biography:...
asked "You and Samantha have been going out for how long now?...Like two years, one year, five months, two months?" to which Lohan laughed, and replied "For a very long time." Stryker then went on to say "Well, I hope you guys stay together. You are a very lovely looking couple", to which Lohan replied, "Thank you very much." Lohan's publicist originally stated that there was no confession; however, on 14 October, following a tabloid report by Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
's Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
that claimed Lohan and Ronson's relationship was "on the rocks", Lohan's publicist told Access Hollywood
Access Hollywood
Access Hollywood is a weekday television entertainment news program covering events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was created by former Entertainment Tonight executive producer Jim Van Messel, and is currently directed by Robert Silverstein. In previous years, Doug Dougherty and...
that the report was inaccurate and, "They are fine." When personally asked by a paparazzo, Ronson responded, "Are you fucking kidding me!?"
Lohan's father, Michael Lohan
Michael Lohan
Michael Lohan, Sr. is the ex-husband of Dina Lohan and the father of Lindsay, Michael Lohan Jr., Ali, and Cody Lohan.-Early life:...
, has been very outspoken in his disapproval of Lohan's lesbian relationship with Ronson and, on 24 September 2008, Lohan wrote a response to him via e-mail to the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
: "Samantha is not evil, I care for her very much and she's a wonderful girl.... She loves me, as I do her."
Lohan opened up about her relationship with Ronson in the December 2008 issue of Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
magazine. She stated, "I think it's pretty obvious who I'm seeing... I think it's no shock to anyone that it's been going on for quite some time... She's a wonderful person and I love her very much."
On 6 April 2009, Lohan announced that she was taking a break from seeing Ronson to focus on work. Ronson stated, in a July 2010 interview with The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, that she loves Lohan as a human being, but the paparazzi attention grew to be too much, saying "I'm not gonna not hang out with somebody that I care about because of that s**t." She also stated "I’m not gay! I’m an equal-opportunity player! I still go back and forth."
Albums
- Samantha Ronson & DJ AM - Challah (2003)
- Samantha Ronson & The Undertakers - Chasing the Reds (2011)