On the heels of high-profile sexual-assault allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs, an assistant has filed a lawsuit against the former president of Combs’s Bad Boy Entertainment alleging sexual harassment and sexual assault. Harve Pierre allegedly “used his position of authority as plaintiff’s boss to groom, exploit, and sexually assault” the assistant, according to the complaint, which was obtained by Rolling Stone. The assistant, who has chosen to remain anonymous, alleges she was sexually assaulted multiple times by Pierre between 2016 and 2017, “in New York City and other locations throughout the country,” and that she “suffered physical, emotional, and psychological injuries.” Pierre did not immediately respond to the Cut’s request for comment.
Pierre and Combs have known one another for decades after meeting as students at Howard University. According to Pierre’s LinkedIn profile, he started working at Bad Boy in 1991, and after leaving the company for more than 20 years, he returned as president in 2017. Pierre now refers to himself as a “partial owner” of Bad Boy on his LinkedIn. However, a spokesperson for the company said in a statement to the Cut that “neither the plaintiff nor the executive are current employees of the company.” “We have recently become aware of a lawsuit filed in New York by a former employee. The allegations are from many years ago that were never brought to the attention of the company,” the statement reads, adding, “we are now investigating the allegations, and our top priority is the safety and well-being of our employees.”
According to Rolling Stone, in addition to Pierre, the Jane Doe lawsuit accuses Bad Boy Entertainment, Bad Boy Records, and Combs Enterprises of negligence and gender violence. It claims the companies failed to “properly supervise” Pierre, “especially considering his access to individuals like plaintiff.”
On November 16, Combs’s ex-girlfriend, the singer Cassie (real name Cassandra Ventura), filed a federal lawsuit accusing Combs of rape and physical abuse that started in 2005, when she was 19 and Combs was 37. The graphically detailed complaint alleged a pattern of Combs providing her with drugs, beating her, and forcing her to have sex with male sex workers. Ventura says Combs exerted total control over her life and was extremely jealous, at one point threatening to blow up the car of Kid Cudi, a rapper whom she had briefly dated. (“Around that time,” the suit says, “Kid Cudi’s car exploded in his driveway.” “This is all true,” Kudi told the New York Times.) Ventura also alleged that Combs raped her in 2018. A little more than a day after Ventura filed the suit, the parties reached a settlement, with Combs denying the allegations and Ventura saying that she “decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control.”
Both Ventura and the anonymous assistant’s lawsuits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window for filing sexual-abuse civil cases that have passed the statute of limitations. That window, which closes on November 24, has led to a handful of recent lawsuits against high-profile entertainment figures like Russell Brand, music mogul L.A. Reid, and ex-Grammys CEO Neil Portnow. About 2,700 cases have been filed under the act so far, according to The Hollywood Reporter.