‘Bad boy for life’: Everthing you need to know about the criminal case and civil lawsuits against Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs
One of the world’s most famous rappers is facing life in jail in a US prison. Here’s everything you need to know about why.
Entertainment
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In 2001, Sean “Diddy” Combs boasted of being a “Bad Boy For Life” in a star-studded video that featured actor Ben Stiller, boxer Mike Tyson, basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal and rappers Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg.
For the next two decades, the millionaire rapper built on that reputation, ruling Hollywood with his salacious, celebrity-filled parties and catching its biggest names in his notorious web. Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West and the Kardashians are among the famous faces to be drawn into his circle even as rumours started to ripple about his playboy life.
But now, the 54-year-old’s bad-boy reputation has finally caught up with him – and finds him sitting in a Brooklyn jail cell facing criminal charges of sex-trafficking and racketeering.
On top of that, he’s facing a growing list of civil prosecutions alleging that he sexually assaulted teenage boys, girls and women.
The shocking turn of events has left his A-lister pack reeling and cast a dark shadow over Diddy’s friendship with a 15-year-old Justin Bieber and mentor relationship with rapper Usher, who has said that living with him in New York in the 1990s was “pretty wild”.
And questions are now being asked what Diddy’s buddies knew and what they turned a blind eye to. Here is everything you need to know about the case against P Diddy so far.
INSIDE THE ‘DIDDY PARTIES’
In the late 1990s and 2000s, Diddy, known then various as Puff Daddy or Puffy before switching to his current moniker, built a reputation for his lavish, celebrity-filled white parties. Held at his estate in the rich-list playground of the Hamptons and spreading to St Tropez and Beverly Hills, the parties were a roll call of America’s most famous faces, all clad in white.
Mariah Carey, Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Leonardo DiCaprio and Paris Hilton were all on Diddy’s invitation list for Diddy’s white parties, with the rapper filmed telling his guests to “put the kids away”.
The white parties became a high-profile event on Hollywood’s glitzy calendar, but it was his dirty secret – loud and frenetic “freak offs”, orgy-like sessions where female victims were allegedly trafficked and forced into sexual acts that were often videoed by Diddy – that have become the subject of his criminal troubles.
DIDDY’S LOS ANGELES ARREST
More than 1000 bottles of baby oil lubricant, narcotics and firearms were seized by US Department of Homeland Security agents during raids of Diddy’s Miami and Los Angeles homes.
A grand jury indicted the A-lister last month and agents arrested him at the Park Hyatt Hotel in New York on September 16.
He was denied bail and remanded to Brooklyn’s infamous Metropolitan Detention Centre, which his lawyers have described as “horrific”. He is being held in a section reserved for detainees that need special protection, including convicted cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, who stole $8bn.
THE CRIMINAL ALLEGATIONS AGAINST DIDDY
Diddy faces three counts of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution.
The charges relate to his “freak-off” sex sessions, that one guest – an aspiring singer – has said left her “traumatised”.
In their indictment, prosecutors claim Diddy and “members and associates” from his business empire kidnapped women and forced them to engage in sexual activity at the parties while he watched and sometimes recorded them on video.
He made his first appearance in a Manhattan court last Thursday, when he pleaded not guilty. His 84-year-old mother, Janice, who has condemned his “public lynching”, and five of his seven children – sons Justin, 30, and Christian “King”, 26, and daughters Chance, 18, and 17-year-old twins Jessie and D’Lila – supported him in court.
His trial date was set for May 5. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in jail for racketeering conspiracy, 15 years for sex trafficking and 10 years for transportation to engage in prostitution.
DIDDY’S CIVIL LAWSUITS
This week, six new lawsuits were added to the long list Diddy was already facing.
The anonymous claims by two women and four men were lodged in New York federal court. They allege that he raped and sexually assaulted the victims, including a 16-year-old boy.
More lawsuits are expected to be filed in coming weeks.
They’re the latest chapter in a legal saga that began late last year, when R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, 38, broke “years in silence and darkness” to file her own lawsuit, accusing the rapper of rape, sex trafficking and physical assault during their 11-year on-off relationship that began when she was just 19.
In her 35-page complaint, Ventura – who was once signed to Diddy’s label, Bad Boy – says he “asserted complete control” over her “ensuring her inability to escape his hold”.
Diddy refuted the allegations but settled a day later.
In the weeks after Ventura’s explosive action, a raft of other accusers stepped forward.
One woman filed a claim in New York alleging that she was trafficked to New York in 2003, when she was just 17, and gang-raped by Diddy, Bad Boy Records executive Harve Pierre and one other man.
One allegation dates back to 1990 or 1991 and accuses Diddy and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall of rape and assault. Another lawsuit cites claims of sexual assault and workplace harassment between 2016 and 2017.
“Enough is enough,” Diddy tweeted in a statement on December 6. “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation, and my legacy.”
Nearly six months later, a confronting 2016 video emerged in which the rapper appears to be physically assaulting Ventura outside a hotel lift, kicking her while she lay on the floor and dragging her away.
DIDDY’S EXES
Ventura’s disturbing video prompted a remarkable Instagram post from fashion designer Misa Hylton, mother of Diddy’s 30-year-old son, Justin, who said the video had “triggered my own trauma” and she was “heartbroken that Cassie must relive the horror of her abuse and my heart goes out to her”.
Diddy has seven children with four different women – sons Quincy, 32, who he adopted, Christian, Jessie and D’Lila with the late model, Kim Porter, Chance, whose mum Sarah Chapman dated murdered rapper 2Pac, and two-year-old daughter Love with model Dana Tran.
The list of beautiful exes includes actress Jennifer Lopez, who had a volatile, rollercoaster relationship with the rapper between 1999 and 2001. In 1999, Diddy and Lopez were arrested over a nightclub shooting in New York. The charges against her were dropped and he was acquitted at trial.
Who’s who in P Diddy’s web of celebrities.
Justin Bieber
As he shot to overnight fame, a teenage Justin Bieber found himself hanging out with the famous rapper, who was then nearly 40. Bieber – whose huge hit single, Baby, had raced up the charts – was signed to Usher’s RBMG Records, which brought him into Diddy’s world. In one unearthed video clip, Diddy says he had been “given custody” of the teen. “He’s having 48 hours with Diddy, where we hanging out and what we’re doing we can’t really disclose,” the music mogul says. “But it’s definitely a 15-year-old’s dream.” It’s prompted a flood of concerns on social media since Diddy’s arrest, with one observer saying: “Hollywood did you so wrong.”
Usher
Diddy’s relationship with the much-younger Usher is also coming under closer scrutiny in the wake of his criminal charges and civil lawsuits. Usher was just 14 when he was sent to Diddy’s “Puffy Flavour Camp” by his record label boss, LA Reid, who wanted the older rapper to “take this kid and teach him your swagger”. Usher – who has not commented since Diddy’s arrest – has previously said he was exposed to “pretty wild” situations during his time with Diddy in the early 1990s.
Casandra Ventura
The R&B singer was only 19 when she met 37-year-old Diddy back in 2005 – a year before her debut album was released by his Bad Boy Entertainment. They started dating two years later and their volatile relationship spanned 11 years. She opened the legal floodgates against Diddy last November, when she filed her lawsuit alleging relentless physical sexual and emotional abuse – and settled the next day.
Jay Z
The superstar – and husband of Beyonce – has been close friends with Diddy, also known as Puff Daddy, since they were up-and-coming rappers in the 1990s. Jay-Z, real name Shawn Carter, was a guest at Diddy’s 50th birthday in 2019. Earlier this month, TV host Piers Morgan was forced to apologise after singer Jaguar Wright made allegations on his talk show against Jay-Z and Beyonce that compared them to Diddy. Earlier this year, rapper 50Cent posted on Instagram: “Jay in hibernation he ain’t coming outside till this sh-- with puff blow over”.
Beyonce
The “Queen Bey” of R&B is connected to Diddy through her husband, Jay-Z, and attended his white parties. He appeared on her 2003 song Summertime.
Jennifer Lopez
The actress and singer – who is reeling from her second marriage breakdown with Ben Affleck – is said to be on “high alert” after the arrest of her ex, P Diddy, who she dated between 1991 and 2001. The pair have their own legal history – they were both arrested in 1999 after a shooting at a New York nightclub. Charges against Lopez were dropped but Diddy was indicted before being acquitted by a jury.
Ashton Kutcher
Once a close friend of Diddy’s, the actor hosted star-studded parties with the rapper, who he met more than 20 years ago while he was hosting the MTV show Punk’d. During a 2019 interview, the actor was asked about Diddy party stories and admitted there were “a lot I can’t tell” before faltering and saying “I can’t tell that one, either”.
Record company boss Harve Pierre
The former Bad Boy Records president is named in a civil lawsuit along with Diddy and another unnamed defendant. It alleges the three men gave the 17-year-old victim drugs and alcohol and flew her on a private jet to New York before viciously gang-raping her.
Singer-songwriter Aaron Hall
The 60-year-old singer and Diddy are accused of taking turns raping a teenage girl and her friend in the early 1990s. In her 10-page lawsuit, the unnamed accuser says Hall and Diddy were “very flirtatious and handsy” with her and her friend, who they met at an MCA Records event in New York and invited to Hall’s apartment for an afterparty, where she and her friend were forced tohave sex with both Combs and Hall.
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