Shannade Clermont of the infamous Clermont twins speaks on the last night with her dead sugar daddy and claims he ‘was not an innocent person’.
One half of the.popular Instagram model duo The Clermont Twins finally speaks on the fatal night with her ‘sugar daddy’. Shannade Clermont, 25, was sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud for stealing debit-card information from James Alesi.
Alesi who was a 42-year-old real-estate broker, overdosed and died following a $400 “prostitution date” with the twin model at his Manhattan apartment. She talks about his reputation, her beauty regimen plans for jail and breaks downing tears at the thought of being away from her twin.
Check out excerpts from her interview with The Post below.
“He wasn’t asleep when I left — he was just drunk, I have never been around people who have been on heavy drugs, so I didn’t really know.
“It was like, ‘Oh, he was a drunk mess.’ I was annoyed . . . [I thought] he was playing games. So I just left.”
She admitted she took his card and, over the next few months, went on a $20,000 shopping spree, using it to pay her rent, purchase flights and splurge on Valentino shoes, a Philipp Plein jacket and Beats headphones, among other luxury items.
The day after their date, Alesi was found dead in his East 53rd Street apartment from an overdose of cocaine mixed with fentanyl.
“From the outside looking in, it looks like I knew he was dead and was like ‘haha’ . . . and that’s really sick,” said Shannade.
“The thing was, he was known as a sugar daddy — very known,” Shannade said. “He’s not, like, an innocent person.”
The sisters told The Post that the judge considered their active Instagramming while the trial was ongoing proof of Shannade’s disreputability.
“I don’t know what they expect us to post — like, us crying or looking sad?” said Shannade. “We don’t post our daily struggles or how I feel every day.”
“I just feel like the judge had her mind made up,” Shannon added. “She kept talking about our social following. She said, ‘We need to use you as an example to your followers . . . ’
“She didn’t feel like we have suffered, I mean, I didn’t love him; I liked him,” Shannade said. “[He] was just someone who took care of me.”
At the sentencing, Alesi’s sister read a statement to the court alleging the incident “was all calculated in advance, done out of greed and with malicious intent.”
“My brother died, and [Shannade] went shopping,” the sibling said.
Shannade claims Alesi’s family members “don’t really know his lifestyle. I mean, he’s been in and out of rehab for years. Like, you knew he had a drug problem, why am I the one to blame for that?”
The sisters were shocked when the sentence was delivered. They had thought Shannade’s presentence interview, detailing her suicidal ideation and how the twins had started The Clermont Foundation to raise awareness for mental health, would help her evade jail time.
“We actually felt blindsided, because [the lawyer] told me [Shannade] was not going to serve any time,” said Shannon.
Instead, the judge said, “When faced with a real test of character, Ms. Clermont chose to leave [the victim’s] apartment with his debit-card information without calling 911. No foundation, established after her arrest, can account for that lack of character.”
With Shannade due to report for prison on June 4, the twins are scared about being apart. Asked about the impending separation, they both broke down in tears.
“I have to be strong for her, because I usually cry when I am alone or when she’s not around,” said Shannon.
“I’m not posting by myself,” Shannon said. “Now if it’s just one of us, we don’t post: That’s our brand.”
Meanwhile, Shannade — who will be in a low-security prison in Los Angeles, where the siblings now live — is already thinking about her beauty regime behind bars.
“My wig has to come off, but thank God I have hair,” she said, adding that she might bleach her locks blond so as to create an ombré effect as her dark roots grow out. She’s also been researching how women in jail take care of their tresses.
“They use masks like oatmeal and avocado,” Shannade said. “I could try foods and stuff.”
‘Many people have been incarcerated and they come out stronger. Look at Martha Stewart.’
“I think I want to actually learn some law, because I feel like I was misinformed about this whole process,” Shannade explained, taking a page from pal Kim Kardashian who has said she is studying law.
Kardashian hired the twins to help promote her new sunglasses collaboration with Carolina Lemke, posting photos from the campaign after the sentencing. Shannade hopes Kardashian will visit her in prison.
“Kanye West and Kim — that would be pretty cool,” she said.
“We really can’t speak on it, but we are still working with Kim Kardashian,” said Shannon. “She is giving her support.”
“In five to 10 years, we want to be a huge fashion house,” said Shannade. “We want to be the next Mary-Kate and Ashley [Olsen, actors-turned-designers].”
“I feel like this may have happened for a reason,” Shannade said of her arrest and prison sentence. “God already has his plan, and I’m just going to the path and living it. Look at TI and Gucci Mane. Many people have been incarcerated and they come out stronger. Look at Martha Stewart.”
As for now, “I have been going to church and just praying a lot,” said Shannade. “It hurts because I hurt the people around me.”
