The rapper and mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested in Manhattan on Monday, the latest development in a nearly year-long saga spawned by numerous sexual assault and violence allegations against him.
He has been indicted on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution, and accused of running a “criminal enterprise” that abused women over a period of years, the New York Times reported.
“He’s going to plead not guilty, obviously,” Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Combs, said on Tuesday. “He’s going to fight this with all of his energy and all of his might.”
“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children and working to uplift the Black community,” the rapper’s legal team said separately in a statement to the Times after his arrest. “He is an imperfect person but he is not a criminal.”
Combs has faced growing public scrutiny since last November, when the singer Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, filed a lawsuit alleging that Combs abused her, urged her to have sex with male sex workers while he filmed, and that he later raped her. Ventura’s case, settled one day after it was filed, set off a torrent of similar lawsuits from other accusers, several of whom also described brutal and disturbing details.
Combs initially denied Ventura’s allegations, but in May, CNN obtained and published a violent surveillance video showing Combs kicking, dragging, and throwing an object at Ventura. According to CNN, the footage was filmed on March 5, 2016, at the now-shuttered InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles. In her lawsuit, Ventura had described a 2016 incident at the InterContinental hotel in Los Angeles.
After the video was released, Combs posted a minute-long apology on Instagram acknowledging that it was him captured on the footage. “My behavior on that video is inexcusable,” he said. “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it, and I’m disgusted now.” He said he sought therapy and rehab but did not mention Ventura specifically.
Plaintiffs in the other cases have stated that Diddy — whose birth name is Sean Combs and who has also publicly gone by Puff Daddy, Puffy, and Love — raped them and, in some cases, trafficked them by coercing them to engage in sex with other men. Together, the cases have redirected public attention toward longstanding allegations of violence against Combs, leading some brands to cut ties with him and Hulu to scrap his upcoming reality show.
Speculation around the accusations escalated as homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach linked to Diddy were raided by federal authorities in March, who revealed that the raids were linked to an ongoing investigation into sex trafficking allegations.
Especially in the 1990s and 2000s, Diddy was a figure of enormous power, not just in hip-hop but in the business and entertainment worlds writ large. In recent months, however, multiple people have sued him, saying he used that influence and wealth to sexually victimize and, in some cases, traffic them, while avoiding consequences for decades.
The cases have captured the public’s attention in part because Combs was such an influential executive and gatekeeper in music and fashion, yet one who had long been the subject of allegations of violence, including arrests. They are among the first major allegations in years against a major figure in the music industry, which many feel has failed to reckon with abuses of power, even at the height of the Me Too movement. Combs is just one of many powerful men who have evaded scrutiny but whose alleged past conduct is being revisited with fresh and more critical eyes — in some cases thanks to the landmark New York laws that have allowed people alleging sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits past the time period specified by the statute of limitations.
Dream Hampton, producer of Surviving R. Kelly, told the Times late last year that an accounting was arriving for the Bad Boy founder. “Puff is done,” she said.
The suits against Combs also show that despite recent backlash, the Me Too movement and the legal and cultural changes that came with it have had an enduring impact. Even if allegations of sexual assault and harassment do not make daily headlines the way they did in 2017, the reckoning is ongoing — and no industry is likely to remain immune forever.
Diddy built an empire across multiple businesses
Combs is a producer and rapper who rose to be an influential figure across music, media, and fashion. He started Bad Boy Records in New York in 1993, when he was in his early 20s, and soon signed Notorious B.I.G., whose two albums helped define New York hip-hop in that era. Bad Boy grew into a multimillion-dollar business, and Combs produced iconic ’90s acts from Jodeci to Mary J. Blige. When Biggie was killed in 1997, Combs released a Grammy-winning tribute, “I’ll Be Missing You,” which “helped inaugurate a commercial boom in hip-hop that lasted until the end of the nineties,” according to Michael Specter of the New Yorker.
Combs was also one of the first to blend the worlds of hip-hop, business, and luxury. His fashion label, Sean John, founded in 1998, became known for high-end menswear. He promoted brands of vodka and tequila and hosted exclusive white parties in the Hamptons with guests like Martha Stewart. Though no longer as central a figure as he was in the ’90s, Combs remains a rich and well-connected celebrity: Within a span of weeks last fall, he held a joint album release and birthday party attended by stars such as Naomi Campbell and Janet Jackson, performed for a sold-out crowd in London, and appeared at the homecoming celebration for his alma mater, Howard University, where he made a surprise $1 million donation.
As Combs built his empire, however, he was accused of multiple acts of violence. In 1999, he was arrested for beating another executive with a chair, a phone, and a champagne bottle; he had to pay a fine and take an anger management class, according to the New Yorker. The same year, he was involved in a shooting at a club in Manhattan, where he was attending a party with his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez; witnesses said they saw him with a gun, but he was ultimately acquitted after a public, much-watched trial.
He has also been accused of threats and violence against women. In a 2019 interview, for example, his ex-girlfriend Gina Huynh said he had thrown a shoe at her and dragged her by the hair. But these reports have not received mainstream public attention — until now.
Singer Cassie filed suit against Diddy in November
In Ventura’s November lawsuit, first reported by the New York Times, the singer, who dated Combs and was signed to his label, said she had experienced years of abuse from the mogul, starting soon after she met him in 2005, when she was 19. She said that he beat her repeatedly, at one point kicking her in the face, and that later, in 2018, he raped her. She also said he trafficked her by coercing her to have sex with sex workers in different cities while he filmed and masturbated. She tried to delete the photos and videos afterward, but Combs retained access, she said in the suit, at one point making her watch a video she thought she had deleted.
Ventura’s suit also said that Combs and his associates used his power and wealth to intimidate her into silence and compliance, with his employees threatening to damage her music career if she spoke out against him. In one particularly shocking detail, Ventura said Combs threatened to blow up the rapper Kid Cudi’s car because Cudi and Ventura were dating; the car later exploded. “This is all true,” a spokesperson for Kid Cudi told the Times of the car exploding.
Through his lawyer, Ben Brafman, Combs accused Ventura of blackmail. “For the past six months, Mr. Combs has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship,” Brafman said in the statement, which also accused Ventura of lying in her lawsuit to seek a “payday.” Ventura’s lawyer, Douglas Wigdor, said Combs had actually offered Ventura money for her silence, which she had declined.
Ventura’s suit was settled for an undisclosed amount within a single day. The singer stated that she had “decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control.”
But Ventura’s decision to come forward publicly opened the floodgates, and more reports of assault and abuse began pouring out.
Other people say Diddy harmed them
Three other women soon filed suit against Combs. In the second suit, Joi Dickerson-Neal says he drugged and raped her in 1991. In the third, Liza Gardner says that in 1990, he coerced her into sex and choked her, causing her to lose consciousness. Jonathan Davis, a lawyer for Combs, said in a statement to the Times that Combs denied these allegations as well: “Because of Mr. Combs’s fame and success, he is an easy target for accusers who attempt to smear him.”
In the fourth suit, the woman identified as Jane Doe says she was a junior in high school when she met then-Bad Boy president Harve Pierre and another Combs associate in Detroit. They convinced her to fly on their jet to New York, the suit says, where they and the rapper gave her drugs and alcohol and then violently raped her.
“Ms. Doe has lived with her memories of this fateful night for 20 years, during which time she has suffered extreme emotional distress that has impacted nearly every aspect of her life and personal relationships,” the suit says. “Given the brave women who have come forward against Ms. Combs and Mr. Pierre in recent weeks, Ms. Doe is doing the same.”
In response to that suit, Combs released a statement denying all reports of violence, calling them “sickening allegations” made “by individuals looking for a quick payday.” Pierre has also denied the allegations, saying in a statement to TMZ, “I have never participated in, witnessed, nor heard of anything like this, ever.”
The women came forward last year because two New York laws — one of which paved the way for E. Jean Carroll’s successful lawsuit against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation — opened limited windows of time in which people can file civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse, even if the statute of limitations has passed. One of those windows closed in late November, explaining the flurry of complaints.
While the suits mostly describe behavior the plaintiffs say happened years ago, a February filing by Rodney Jones Jr., known as Lil Rod, says that Combs subjected him to unwanted touching and attempted to “groom” him when they worked together on The Love Album: Off the Grid in 2022 and 2023. Jones says that at a party in 2023, he was forced to drink tequila mixed with drugs, then woke up “naked with a sex worker sleeping next to him.” He says that Combs offered money and threatened violence to get him to solicit sex workers and perform sex acts with them.
Combs has denied Jones’s allegations. In a statement, Shawn Holley, a lawyer for Combs, said, “We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies,” and called Jones “nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 million lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday.”
In the wake of these civil lawsuits, raids in Los Angeles and Miami Beach in March pointed to an apparent criminal investigation. According to the Times, the raids on homes connected to the rapper were part of an inquiry by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and agents with the Department of Homeland Security. However, the raids suggested a new level in the Combs case, with law enforcement sources also telling the Los Angeles Times they were linked to sex trafficking allegations.
Is this the music industry’s Me Too moment?
The growing number of reports, and their chilling details, have led companies and influential people in media and business to distance themselves from the rapper. Diageo, the beverage brand with which Combs partnered on vodka and tequila, removed his image from its website. Capital Preparatory Schools, a New York charter school network Combs helped expand, posted a statement on the school’s website saying it was cutting ties with him (though the statement was later removed). Combs also stepped aside as chair of Revolt, a TV network he helped start in 2013.
The cases against Combs are coming to light against a backdrop of other accusations against major figures in music. In November, a woman sued Neil Portnow, former head of the Grammy Awards, saying he had drugged and raped her in 2018. The same month, a former employee sued music executive L.A. Reid, saying he sexually assaulted and harassed her, leading to irrevocable damage to her career in the music industry.
They also occur at a time when Ye, a music and fashion mogul whose career has parallels with Diddy’s, has lost many of his brand partnerships after public antisemitic and racist statements as well as what many say was a years-long pattern of verbal abuse and harassment, which may have been kept quiet in part because partnering with him was so lucrative for brands.
While the Me Too movement forced reckonings around sexual assault and harassment in industries from film to other media to restaurants in 2017 and 2018, many in the music business felt that its biggest players were relatively unscathed. R. Kelly, for example, faced few consequences until Hampton’s widely watched 2019 docuseries drew renewed attention to the accusations — despite repeated allegations that he’d had sexual contact with underage girls, several lawsuits, and even a 2008 criminal trial over child sexual abuse material. Many argued that the reason Kelly was given a pass for so long was that the women coming forward to report abuse by him were Black. In 2021, he was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to 30 years in prison; a second 20-year sentence was added the following year, with all but one year to be served concurrently with the first sentence.
Three women stated publicly in 2017 that another influential music industry figure, Def Jam Recordings co-founder Russell Simmons, had raped them. Like Kelly, he was the subject of a documentary focusing on the allegations, though he has not faced charges.
Now, Ventura and the other people filing suit are reporting violent rape, intimidation, and abuse by one of the biggest names in music, someone who symbolized the movement of hip-hop into both mainstream and high-end culture. Combs in his heyday was an icon of power and influence in music, fashion, and business, and the lawsuits represent a new willingness to call that power to account.
They also serve as a reminder that the Me Too movement has made enduring changes, including influencing law and policy and creating a road map for survivors of assault to come forward and share their stories.
Correction, June 6, 12:25 pm ET: A previous version of this story included an inaccurate stage name for L.A. Reid.
Update, September 17, 11 am ET: This story, originally published on December 20, 2023, has been updated several times, most recently to include details of Combs’s arrest and indictment.
