- Her professional name is a combination of Nina ("little one"), from an Hispanic boyfriend, and Simone from French film actress Simone Signoret.
- Daughter Lisa Celeste (Lisa Simone Kelly), born in 1962.She's a Broadway actress, star of the Broadway musical "Elton John's Aida".
- Sixth of seven children. Studied at Julliard School of Music in New York Resides in the South of France Awarded an Honorary Doctor in Music and Humanities
- In 1995 she was given a suspended eight-month jail term after firing a scatter-gun at a pair of noisy teenagers playing next to her home in Bouc-Bel-Air near Aix-en-Provence. That same year she was fined $US 5,000 for leaving the scene of a car accident that had occurred in 1993.
- Her first hit recording was her rendition of the classic song "I Loves You, Porgy", from Gershwin's opera "Porgy and Bess".
- She lived at various times in Barbados, Switzerland, France, Liberia, Trinidad and Britain before moving to the south of France in 1993.
- She began her career as a singer and pianist in Atlantic City's Irish Midtown Bar & Grill.
- Had a reputation for being moody and difficult.
- Inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
- Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.
- In 2010 Canadian singer Kellylee Evans paid homage to Simone by recording an album entitled "Nina" in which she sang an assortment of songs Simone had made popular during her career.
- Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 516-517. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
- Friends with Carmen McRae, and Dick Gregory.
- Sister of Sam L. Waymon.
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