Inside Diddy’s secret world, as described by his former assistants
Ex-staffers have testified about everything from hip-hop mogul’s penchant for apple sauce on cheeseburgers to being kidnapped at gunpoint.
Picking up empty bottles of Gatorade and baby oil after sex parties in hotel rooms. Spending five days taking lie-detector tests at the threat of being thrown in a river. And making sure to have Heinz ketchup on trips to London.
Former personal assistants to Sean “Diddy” Combs have spent the past few weeks testifying at his sex-trafficking trial in a New York federal court about their bizarre and gruelling time working for one of the most famous people in hip-hop. The job, they told jurors, entailed 100-hour weeks and being on call throughout the day to fulfil the mercurial demands of their boss.
One former aide, David James, recounted a human-resources staffer pointing to a picture of Combs on the wall when he interviewed for the job. “This is Mr. Combs’s kingdom,” he recalled the staffer saying. “We’re all here to serve in it.”
Working in the kingdom had some perks, with assistants tagging along with Combs on glamorous world travel on private jets and partying on a yacht in the Caribbean. But there was a darker side, they said, that went beyond catering to Combs’s every whim and included violent incidents of kidnapping and sexual assault.
Some assistants said Combs threatened them and they watched him attack his former girlfriends. For prosecutors, that testimony could provide important corroboration to what Combs’s alleged victims said on the witness stand. His defence lawyers argue that women who accused him of wrongdoing, and in some cases have reached settlements, had financial motivations. “The assistants don’t necessarily have the same credibility baggage,” said former federal prosecutor Marc Weinstein.
Combs, 55 years old, is charged with running a criminal enterprise that relied on his staff and security to force his ex-girlfriends into participating in sex parties, dubbed “freak offs,” with male escorts in hotels. He used violence, financial leverage and the threat of releasing sex tapes to control his victims, prosecutors allege.
Combs’s lawyers have acknowledged he committed domestic violence but said the sex involved consenting adults.
James, who worked for Combs from 2007 through 2009, said his duties included prepping hotel rooms with toiletries and food, ranging from Jell-O to Simply Lemonade. A medical bag included Advil, Viagra, pills to increase sperm count, ecstasy and Percocet — with some prescriptions in James’s name, he said.
While travelling, James and other assistants catered to Combs’s eccentric tastes, including apple sauce on cheeseburgers and Heinz in London. “The ketchup in the UK is not similar to the ketchup in America,” James told jurors. “He would not be happy.”
Both James and Capricorn Clark, who worked for Combs for years, told jurors that Combs staffers forced them to take lie-detector tests. Clark said her five days of tests were prompted by accusations that she stole high-end jewellery. The heavy-set, chain-smoking man who administered the exams threatened her, she said: “If you fail these tests, they’re going to throw you in the East River.”
A Combs lawyer told the judge there was no indication Combs had authorised such a threat.
Clark testified that her tasks included not only setting up the hotel rooms with items such as Diptyque candles, lubricant and baby oil, but surveying the damage Combs left behind. “I would see handprints left in oil on the ultra-suede wall,” she told jurors.
She said she often slept two to four hours a night.
Clark said that more than a decade ago Combs kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her to kill the musician Kid Cudi, who had previously dated his girlfriend Cassie Ventura. She said Combs entered Cudi’s residence but he wasn’t home.
Combs’s lawyers have said Clark wasn’t kidnapped, and noted she continued to work for him after the alleged incident. Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mescudi, testified that Combs apologised years later about his actions.
A former personal assistant who testified under the pseudonym Mia said Combs sexually assaulted her on more than one occasion. He also threatened and physically attacked her, including once chasing her on a yacht floating off the island of St. Barthélemy after she took too long to count cash he had in a safe. “You better learn to walk on water like Jesus,” she recalled Combs saying to her.
Combs’s defence team has accused Mia of changing her allegations since she began co-operating with the government.
George Kaplan, a 34-year-old former executive assistant, told jurors that he began working for Combs in his early 20s. The $125,000-a-year job was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said, even though Combs threatened to fire him once a month while he had the position.
The entrepreneur once ordered him to get a 1-gallon water bottle from Whole Foods Market, Kaplan recalled, but the store didn’t have the right size. Instead Kaplan bought two half-gallon bottles, assuming it would suffice. Combs still blew up at him over the purchases, Kaplan said.
He testified that he quit in December 2015 after witnessing Combs violently throw objects at two girlfriends in separate incidents. Even then, he was conflicted about leaving what he saw as his gateway to working in the entertainment industry. “My friends told me this was my Harvard and I was blowing it,” he said.
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