‘Fiddy’ v Diddy: Is the controversial doco a hip-hop hit job?
Netflix has released a damning documentary about Sean Combs featuring never-before-seen footage and explosive allegations from accusers, prompting the imprisoned hip-hop mogul to slam it as a ‘shameful hit piece’.
The reviews are in and Sean Combs: The Reckoning has been slammed as a “shameful hit piece” by – checks notes – one S. Combs. The hip-hop mogul also known as Diddy certainly doesn’t come out of Netflix’s four-part documentary series well. But it was always unlikely to be a love bomb: he is a year into a four-year prison term for transportation to engage in prostitution and has been named in more than 80 often lurid lawsuits; his former partner, Cassie Ventura, has testified that he abused her over 10 years. CCTV footage from the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles showed him in 2016. pulling her to the floor, kicking her twice and dragging her along a hallway
Combs, 56, denies all the allegations, although he has apologised for the hotel assault. It has been a spectacular reversal of fortunes for the producer and rapper who helped to make stars of Biggie Smalls, Mary J. Blige and Usher, and was named most successful rap producer by Guinness World Records in 1997, for singles that charted for 36 consecutive weeks.
Combs, worth an estimated £300m ($605.8m), has said in a statement that the series, directed by Alexandria Stapleton, was motivated by the “personal vendetta” of its executive producer, rapper 50 Cent, also known as “Fiddy”.
Is it a hit job? 50 Cent does have a history of trolling Combs but recently told Good Morning America: “It’s not personal. If I didn’t say anything (people would assume that) hip-hop is fine with his behaviours. There’s no one else being vocal.”
The series “has its own life”, Stapleton tells me. “We all, including 50, have been here to serve the story – the story is not serving us.” The director, who has made well-regarded documentaries about US comedian Chelsea Handler and cult filmmaker Roger Corman, says one of her aims was to speak to “people who have felt like no one really wanted to hear their perspective on Sean”.
They include Joi Dickerson-Neal, who alleges Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her, which he denies. In the series, Dickerson-Neal reads out a letter written by her mother to Combs’s parents, alleging he “without her knowledge videotaped my daughter having sexual intercourse with him. He has also shown this videotape to several people”.
Aubrey O’Day, a member of Danity Kane, a group formed for the Combs-fronted reality series Making the Band, says he sent her explicit photos, and shares a graphic email. O’Day was later fired by Combs, who said: “I don’t like her energy … overly raunchy, promiscuous.” She is shown a statement from someone who saw her in an intoxicated state having sex with Combs, which he denies. “I’ve put this out of my memory,” O’Day says. “Does this mean I was raped? I don’t want to know.”
The grimness continues. Tim “Dawg” Patterson, a childhood friend from Mount Vernon in New York, says Combs’s strategy in fights was “eat your ear off, bite your neck open with his mouth”. A former sex worker, Clayton Howard, claims Combs hired him on several occasions to have sex with Ventura while he directed. He also alleges that Combs once became jealous and “kicked the shit out of her”. Again, this is something Combs denies.
What must really sting for Combs is that the series makes extensive use of never-before-seen footage shot by his own team. We see him days before his arrest in 2024 on calls with assistants, saying, “Y’all are not working together the right way. We’re losing”, and urging them to hire someone “who has worked with the dirtiest business of media and propaganda”. This last comment chimes with allegations made in the series that Combs’s PR team schmoozed influencers who covered his trial. There is also a lame office tantrum (“I’m a savage!”) and an unfathomable scene in which Combs puts on several pairs of socks.
Combs has said the series “relied on stolen footage that was never authorised for release” but Stapleton insists it “was obtained completely legally”. In one sequence Combs meets members of the public before asking for hand sanitiser and saying “I gotta take a bath”. “It shows you his character,” 50 Cent told GMA. “What’s the odds you would do that in front of a camera? That’s one of the moments he forgot he was on tape.”
Stapleton explains that Combs’s unguardedness comes from years in the public eye. “I had to remind myself that he’s the star of a ton of reality shows and is very comfortable with cameras following him,” she says. “I can imagine that one would be like, ‘Well, I can let my guard down now – because I’m going to cut this later’.” Viewers will be the ones needing baths after watching four hours of this. It must have been draining to make. “It does take a toll,” Stapleton says. “Some of it is very dark material.”
Kirk Burrowes, estranged co-founder of Combs’s Bad Boy Records, tells Stapleton he thinks Combs knows more than he has said about the death of Tupac Shakur, while 50 Cent rapped on his 2006 track Hip Hop (Dissin Diddy) that “Puffy knew who hit that n.....”, referring to Smalls’ assassin. There is no compelling evidence for either of these claims and Combs denies them.
The series also features interviews with two of the jurors, one male, one female, in Combs’s trial, who in July acquitted him of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, which could have led to a life sentence. Both jurors question the testimony of Capricorn Clark, Combs’s former assistant, who claims he forced her to drive to the house of rapper Kid Cudi, whom he suspected of having an affair with Ventura, saying: “We’re gonna go kill him.” Cudi, luckily, was out. Combs denies the claim and, Stapleton says, the jurors felt Clark’s account “was suspect because it was emotional. To me, that was potentially a little unsettling”. It seems an odd reason to doubt her: surely one would be emotional.
Stapleton notes that several interviewees also show “their sympathy for who Sean has become, or their conflicted feelings”. These include Kalenna Harper, who was in the group Diddy-Dirty Money with Combs and refers to him as “an asshole” – but adds “he quickly became the guy I wanted to be like”. Stapleton also admits to conflicted moments. “It was also really important not to kill off the whole culture of hip-hop because of what he might have done,” she says. “I wanted to have people remember the art, including some of the things that Sean Combs contributed to the culture.”
In a clip at the end of the series, recorded before his conviction, Combs is bullish. “I know the ending,” he says.” It’s gonna be happily ever after.”
Will it? “All I can say is that Sean Combs is a master at making his own narrative,” Stapleton says. “It will be very interesting to see the sequel.”
The Times
Sean Combs: The Reckoning is on Netflix
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