The rapper and mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested in Manhattan on Monday, the most recent improvement in an almost year-long saga spawned by quite a few sexual assault and violence allegations in opposition to him.
He has been indicted on expenses of intercourse trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to have interaction in prostitution, and accused of working a “prison enterprise” that abused ladies over a interval of years, the New York Occasions reported.
“He’s going to plead not responsible, clearly,” Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Combs, mentioned on Tuesday. “He’s going to struggle this with all of his vitality and all of his may.”
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving household man and confirmed philanthropist who has spent the final 30 years constructing an empire, adoring his kids and dealing to uplift the Black neighborhood,” the rapper’s authorized group mentioned individually in an announcement to the Occasions after his arrest. “He’s an imperfect individual however he’s not a prison.”
Combs has confronted rising public scrutiny since final November, when the singer Cassie, whose full title is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit alleging that Combs abused her, urged her to have intercourse with male intercourse employees whereas he filmed, and that he later raped her. Ventura’s case, settled in the future after it was filed, set off a torrent of comparable lawsuits from different accusers, a number of of whom additionally described brutal and disturbing particulars.
Combs initially denied Ventura’s allegations, however in Could, CNN obtained and revealed a violent surveillance video displaying Combs kicking, dragging, and throwing an object at Ventura. In response to CNN, the footage was filmed on March 5, 2016, on the now-shuttered InterContinental lodge in Los Angeles. In her lawsuit, Ventura had described a 2016 incident on the InterContinental lodge in Los Angeles.
After the video was launched, Combs posted a minute-long apology on Instagram acknowledging that it was him captured on the footage. “My habits on that video is inexcusable,” he mentioned. “I take full accountability for my actions in that video. I used to be disgusted then once I did it, and I’m disgusted now.” He mentioned he sought remedy and rehab however didn’t point out Ventura particularly.
Plaintiffs within the different circumstances have said that Diddy — whose delivery title is Sean Combs and who has additionally publicly passed by Puff Daddy, Puffy, and Love — raped them and, in some circumstances, trafficked them by coercing them to have interaction in intercourse with different males. Collectively, the circumstances have redirected public consideration towards longstanding allegations of violence in opposition to Combs, main some manufacturers to chop ties with him and Hulu to scrap his upcoming actuality present.
Hypothesis across the accusations escalated as houses in Los Angeles and Miami Seashore linked to Diddy had been raided by federal authorities in March, who revealed that the raids had been linked to an ongoing investigation into intercourse trafficking allegations.
Particularly within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s, Diddy was a determine of monumental energy, not simply in hip-hop however within the enterprise and leisure worlds writ massive. In latest months, nonetheless, a number of individuals have sued him, saying he used that affect and wealth to sexually victimize and, in some circumstances, visitors them, whereas avoiding penalties for many years.
The circumstances have captured the general public’s consideration partially as a result of Combs was such an influential govt and gatekeeper in music and trend, but one who had lengthy been the topic of allegations of violence, together with arrests. They’re among the many first main allegations in years in opposition to a serious determine within the music trade, which many really feel has didn’t reckon with abuses of energy, even on the top of the Me Too motion. Combs is only one of many highly effective males who’ve evaded scrutiny however whose alleged previous conduct is being revisited with contemporary and extra crucial eyes — in some circumstances because of the landmark New York legal guidelines which have allowed individuals alleging sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits previous the time interval specified by the statute of limitations.
Dream Hampton, producer of Surviving R. Kelly, advised the Occasions late final 12 months that an accounting was arriving for the Dangerous Boy founder. “Puff is finished,” she mentioned.
The fits in opposition to Combs additionally present that regardless of latest backlash, the Me Too motion and the authorized and cultural modifications that got here with it have had an everlasting affect. Even when allegations of sexual assault and harassment don’t make each day headlines the way in which they did in 2017, the reckoning is ongoing — and no trade is more likely to stay immune perpetually.
Diddy constructed an empire throughout a number of companies
Combs is a producer and rapper who rose to be an influential determine throughout music, media, and trend. He began Dangerous Boy Information in New York in 1993, when he was in his early 20s, and shortly signed Infamous B.I.G., whose two albums helped outline New York hip-hop in that period. Dangerous Boy grew right into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, and Combs produced iconic ’90s acts from Jodeci to Mary J. Blige. When Biggie was killed in 1997, Combs launched a Grammy-winning tribute, “I’ll Be Lacking You,” which “helped inaugurate a industrial growth in hip-hop that lasted till the top of the nineties,” in keeping with Michael Specter of the New Yorker.
Combs was additionally one of many first to mix the worlds of hip-hop, enterprise, and luxurious. His trend label, Sean John, based in 1998, grew to become identified for high-end menswear. He promoted manufacturers of vodka and tequila and hosted unique white events within the Hamptons with friends like Martha Stewart. Although now not as central a determine as he was within the ’90s, Combs stays a wealthy and well-connected superstar: Inside a span of weeks final fall, he held a joint album launch and celebration attended by stars comparable to Naomi Campbell and Janet Jackson, carried out for a sold-out crowd in London, and appeared on the homecoming celebration for his alma mater, Howard College, the place he made a shock $1 million donation.
As Combs constructed his empire, nonetheless, he was accused of a number of acts of violence. In 1999, he was arrested for beating one other govt with a chair, a cellphone, and a champagne bottle; he needed to pay a tremendous and take an anger administration class, in keeping with the New Yorker. The identical 12 months, he was concerned in a capturing at a membership in Manhattan, the place he was attending a celebration along with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez; witnesses mentioned they noticed him with a gun, however he was finally acquitted after a public, much-watched trial.
He has additionally been accused of threats and violence in opposition to ladies. In a 2019 interview, for instance, his ex-girlfriend Gina Huynh mentioned he had thrown a shoe at her and dragged her by the hair. However these experiences haven’t obtained mainstream public consideration — till now.
Singer Cassie filed swimsuit in opposition to Diddy in November
In Ventura’s November lawsuit, first reported by the New York Occasions, the singer, who dated Combs and was signed to his label, mentioned she had skilled years of abuse from the mogul, beginning quickly after she met him in 2005, when she was 19. She mentioned that he beat her repeatedly, at one level kicking her within the face, and that later, in 2018, he raped her. She additionally mentioned he trafficked her by coercing her to have intercourse with intercourse employees in numerous cities whereas he filmed and masturbated. She tried to delete the images and movies afterward, however Combs retained entry, she mentioned within the swimsuit, at one level making her watch a video she thought she had deleted.
Ventura’s swimsuit additionally mentioned that Combs and his associates used his energy and wealth to intimidate her into silence and compliance, along with his staff threatening to break her music profession if she spoke out in opposition to him. In a single significantly stunning element, Ventura mentioned Combs threatened to explode the rapper Child Cudi’s automobile as a result of Cudi and Ventura had been courting; the automobile later exploded. “That is all true,” a spokesperson for Child Cudi advised the Occasions of the automobile exploding.
Via his lawyer, Ben Brafman, Combs accused Ventura of blackmail. “For the previous six months, Mr. Combs has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, underneath the specter of writing a harmful ebook about their relationship,” Brafman mentioned within the assertion, which additionally accused Ventura of mendacity in her lawsuit to hunt a “payday.” Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, mentioned Combs had truly supplied Ventura cash for her silence, which she had declined.
Ventura’s swimsuit was settled for an undisclosed quantity inside a single day. The singer said that she had “determined to resolve this matter amicably on phrases that I’ve some degree of management.”
However Ventura’s determination to come back ahead publicly opened the floodgates, and extra experiences of assault and abuse started pouring out.
Different individuals say Diddy harmed them
Three different ladies quickly filed swimsuit in opposition to Combs. Within the second swimsuit, Joi Dickerson-Neal says he drugged and raped her in 1991. Within the third, Liza Gardner says that in 1990, he coerced her into intercourse and choked her, inflicting her to lose consciousness. Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Combs, mentioned in a assertion to the Occasions that Combs denied these allegations as effectively: “Due to Mr. Combs’s fame and success, he’s a simple goal for accusers who try to smear him.”
In the fourth swimsuit, the lady recognized as Jane Doe says she was a junior in highschool when she met then-Dangerous Boy president Harve Pierre and one other Combs affiliate in Detroit. They satisfied her to fly on their jet to New York, the swimsuit says, the place they and the rapper gave her medication and alcohol after which violently raped her.
“Ms. Doe has lived along with her recollections of this fateful evening for 20 years, throughout which period she has suffered excessive emotional misery that has impacted practically each side of her life and private relationships,” the swimsuit says. “Given the courageous ladies who’ve come ahead in opposition to Ms. Combs and Mr. Pierre in latest weeks, Ms. Doe is doing the identical.”
In response to that swimsuit, Combs launched an announcement denying all experiences of violence, calling them “sickening allegations” made “by people searching for a fast payday.” Pierre has additionally denied the allegations, saying in an announcement to TMZ, “I’ve by no means participated in, witnessed, nor heard of something like this, ever.”
The ladies got here ahead final 12 months as a result of two New York legal guidelines — considered one of which paved the way in which for E. Jean Carroll’s profitable lawsuit in opposition to Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation — opened restricted home windows of time by which individuals can file civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, even when the statute of limitations has handed. A type of home windows closed in late November, explaining the flurry of complaints.
Whereas the fits principally describe habits the plaintiffs say occurred years in the past, a February submitting by Rodney Jones Jr., referred to as Lil Rod, says that Combs subjected him to undesirable touching and tried to “groom” him after they labored collectively on The Love Album: Off the Grid in 2022 and 2023. Jones says that at a celebration in 2023, he was pressured to drink tequila combined with medication, then awakened “bare with a intercourse employee sleeping subsequent to him.” He says that Combs supplied cash and threatened violence to get him to solicit intercourse employees and carry out intercourse acts with them.
Combs has denied Jones’s allegations. In an announcement, Shawn Holley, a lawyer for Combs, mentioned, “We have now overwhelming, indeniable proof that his claims are full lies,” and referred to as Jones “nothing greater than a liar who filed a $30 million lawsuit shamelessly searching for an undeserved payday.”
Within the wake of those civil lawsuits, raids in Los Angeles and Miami Seashore in March pointed to an obvious prison investigation. In response to the Occasions, the raids on houses related to the rapper had been a part of an inquiry by federal prosecutors within the Southern District of New York and brokers with the Division of Homeland Safety. Nonetheless, the raids instructed a brand new degree within the Combs case, with legislation enforcement sources additionally telling the Los Angeles Occasions they had been linked to intercourse trafficking allegations.
Is that this the music trade’s Me Too second?
The rising variety of experiences, and their chilling particulars, have led firms and influential individuals in media and enterprise to distance themselves from the rapper. Diageo, the beverage model with which Combs partnered on vodka and tequila, eliminated his picture from its web site. Capital Preparatory Colleges, a New York constitution college community Combs helped broaden, posted an announcement on the varsity’s web site saying it was reducing ties with him (although the assertion was later eliminated). Combs additionally stepped apart as chair of Revolt, a TV community he helped begin in 2013.
The circumstances in opposition to Combs are coming to mild in opposition to a backdrop of different accusations in opposition to main figures in music. In November, a girl sued Neil Portnow, former head of the Grammy Awards, saying he had drugged and raped her in 2018. The identical month, a former worker sued music govt L.A. Reid, saying he sexually assaulted and harassed her, resulting in irrevocable injury to her profession within the music trade.
In addition they happen at a time when Ye, a music and trend mogul whose profession has parallels with Diddy’s, has misplaced lots of his model partnerships after public antisemitic and racist statements in addition to what many say was a years-long sample of verbal abuse and harassment, which can have been stored quiet partially as a result of partnering with him was so profitable for manufacturers.
Whereas the Me Too motion pressured reckonings round sexual assault and harassment in industries from movie to different media to eating places in 2017 and 2018, many within the music enterprise felt that its largest gamers had been comparatively unscathed. R. Kelly, for instance, confronted few penalties till Hampton’s broadly watched 2019 docuseries drew renewed consideration to the accusations — regardless of repeated allegations that he’d had sexual contact with underage ladies, a number of lawsuits, and even a 2008 prison trial over little one sexual abuse materials. Many argued that the rationale Kelly was given a cross for therefore lengthy was that the ladies coming ahead to report abuse by him had been Black. In 2021, he was convicted of intercourse trafficking and sentenced to 30 years in jail; a second 20-year sentence was added the next 12 months, with all however one 12 months to be served concurrently with the primary sentence.
Three ladies said publicly in 2017 that one other influential music trade determine, Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons, had raped them. Like Kelly, he was the topic of a documentary specializing in the allegations, although he has not confronted expenses.
Now, Ventura and the opposite individuals submitting swimsuit are reporting violent rape, intimidation, and abuse by one of many largest names in music, somebody who symbolized the motion of hip-hop into each mainstream and high-end tradition. Combs in his heyday was an icon of energy and affect in music, trend, and enterprise, and the lawsuits characterize a brand new willingness to name that energy to account.
In addition they function a reminder that the Me Too motion has made enduring modifications, together with influencing legislation and coverage and making a street map for survivors of assault to come back ahead and share their tales.
Correction, June 6, 12:25 pm ET: A earlier model of this story included an inaccurate stage title for L.A. Reid.
Replace, September 17, 11 am ET: This story, initially revealed on December 20, 2023, has been up to date a number of instances, most lately to incorporate particulars of Combs’s arrest and indictment.
