In November 2023, the singer Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura) filed an explosive federal lawsuit against her former partner, Sean “Diddy” Combs, claiming he had been physically and sexually abusive throughout their decadelong relationship. The rapper settled the lawsuit within a day, denying any wrongdoing. But on September 16, 2024, federal agents arrested Combs at the Park Hyatt New York in Manhattan on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.
The 14-page indictment alleges Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation, and conceal his conduct.” To do so, the complaint continues, the rapper “relied on the employees, resources, and influence of the multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled — creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.” On January 30, the government filed a superseding indictment, which did not charge him with new crimes but did add to the case two alleged sex-trafficking victims and a woman Combs allegedly held over the edge of a balcony. The following month, Combs’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charge of transportation to engage in prostitution, pertaining to both his female victims and commercial sex workers, arguing that their client “has been singled out because he is a powerful Black man.”
At the center of the prosecution’s case are Combs’s alleged Freak Offs — “elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded,” per the indictment. Prosecutors say Combs would use drugs, alcohol, threats, and physical force to make ex-girlfriends and women in his orbit participate in lengthy orgies, then use the footage as blackmail to secure their silence.
Combs pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, claimed the rapper was “an innocent man.” In response to the superseding indictment, he said in a statement: “The prosecution’s theory remains flawed. The government has added the ridiculous theory that two of Mr. Combs’s former girlfriends were not girlfriends at all, but were prostitutes. Mr. Combs is as committed as ever to fighting these charges and winning at trial.” That trial is set to begin on May 5.
Since Combs’s alleged crimes became a part of the news cycle, more than 30 people have sued, accusing the mogul of wide-ranging abuse including sexual harassment, rape, and the creation of nonconsensual pornography. His lawyers have consistently denied all of their claims, describing them as “fabricated,” “full of lies,” and opportunistic cash grabs. Here’s what’s been reported so far.
Cassie alleged she was the victim of a pattern of “abuse, violence, and sex trafficking.”
In her lawsuit, filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, Ventura said she first met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37. Shortly thereafter, she alleged Combs seized control over almost every aspect of her life, from her career to her personal medical records. She also claimed he would physically abuse her “multiple times a year,” ply her with “copious amounts of drugs,” and force her into intercourse with male sex workers — encounters she said he recorded and masturbated to. On one occasion in 2018, the complaint continued, Combs forced himself into her apartment and raped her while she “repeatedly said ‘no’ and tried to push him away.”
In a statement to the New York Times, Combs’s lawyer Benjamin Brafman said Combs denied the allegations, adding that the lawsuit was “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’s reputation and seeking a payday.” Ventura and Combs settled the lawsuit one day after it was filed, with Brafman claiming the settlement was “in no way an admission of wrongdoing.”
Video shows Diddy assaulting Cassie back in 2016.
In May, CNN released security footage showing Combs assaulting Ventura in the elevator bay at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016. The video appears to support a similar incident Ventura described in her suit: “[Combs] followed her into the hallway of the hotel while yelling at her. He grabbed at her, and then took glass vases in the hallway and threw them at her, causing glass to crash around them as she ran to the elevator to escape.”
After the video was made public, Combs posted an apology video on Instagram. “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace,” Combs said. “I’m so sorry.”
Meanwhile, lawsuits accusing the mogul of violence, intimidation, and sexual misconduct have piled up.
One thread that runs through the 30-plus civil lawsuits filed against Combs is his alleged penchant for violence; how he would, according to some of his accusers, inflict physical pain and threats to force his way. Bryana Bongolan, for example: A friend of Ventura’s, Bongolan has claimed in a lawsuit that in 2016, when she was sleeping at Ventura’s apartment, Combs showed up and started pounding on the door. Once he got inside, he allegedly picked up Bongolan and, for no discernible reason other than his “disturbing pattern of abusive behavior,” dangled her over the balcony. Through his attorneys, Combs said he “firmly denies these serious allegations and remains confident they will ultimately be proven baseless”; they’ve now been added to the original indictment.
One Jane Doe says that in 1995 she met Combs at a music-video after-party, where he allegedly “violently struck her, slamming her head against the wall and causing her to fall to the floor” and raped her. Another says that when she was 19, she and a friend attended a photo shoot and after-party at Combs’s hotel in 2004, where the rapper allegedly ordered her friend “to perform oral sex on him or else he would have them both killed.” Another anonymous complainant reportedly alleges that, at Club Playhouse in Los Angeles in 2016, Combs approached her and offered her a drink, telling her, “Bitch, I’m not asking you; drink that shit and shut the fuck up” when she refused. He then “shoved his left hand up her skirt, forcefully penetrating her with his fingers while telling the plaintiff, ‘Bitch, I do what I want, take that shit,’” according to reporting on the complaint. In a statement to People, Combs’s lawyers reissued the same denial, saying the mogul is “confident he will prevail in court.”
Two other women have filed separate suits against Combs alleging that he orchestrated their assaults on several occasions. On one night in 1997, however, the women independently say Combs held them against their will after a night out at the former New York club Limelight. Both allege he took them to the Trump Hotel in midtown Manhattan, refused to let them leave, and — according to one of the suits — “forced [them] to take” drugs before demanding they participate in one of his orgies. The women say they did not consent to the encounter and were not permitted to leave the premises until the next morning.
Often, many of the lawsuits contend, Combs would leverage his position against less powerful people in the industry, leaning on an allegedly explosive temper to secure cooperation. Speaking to the BBC, former Bad Boy Records executive Daniel Evans recalled his boss threatening a colleague in 1997: “I have so much money now that I could hire someone to kill you, and nobody would know. No one would miss you. No one would know anything.” And in her federal lawsuit against Combs, Dawn Richard, a former member of the group Danity Kane, accused him of sexual battery, harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unlawful imprisonment. Her complaint painted a picture of Combs as an explosive boss who manipulated her over the course of a decade, making her believe that “abuse and exploitation were required for female artists to succeed in the music industry.” She accused Combs of groping her and retaliating against her when she denied his advances. Combs’s lawyer Erica Wolff has denied the allegations, accusing Richard of manufacturing “a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday.”
Several people accused Combs of drugging them as a prelude to sexual assault.
Another recurring theme is Combs’s alleged practice of spiking his targets’ drinks as a prelude to sexual assault. In her complaint, April Lampros accused Combs of drugging and assaulting her over several years beginning in 1995, when she met up with him at a bar. She says she gave into his pressure to drink because of his “delusional and violent outbursts,” but after a few sips felt “uneasy.” She says she was then guided into a car that took her and Combs to a hotel, where she alleges that he forcibly kissed and grabbed her. Despite her telling him to stop and saying that she felt unwell, “Ms. Lampros was being raped by Mr. Combs, and she soon passed out,” the lawsuit claims.
Lampros says that after the incident, Combs wooed her back by sending lavish gifts and flowers. But he would allegedly assault her a second time later that year, and a third time in 1996, after forcing her and his then-girlfriend, Kim Porter, to take ecstasy and have sex with one another. Lampros says that she “vocally opposed this idea,” but Combs reminded her that “he could make her lose her job,” the suit claims.
Another accuser, Derrick Lee Cardello-Smith, says Combs drugged and sexually assaulted him at a party in Detroit in 1997. Cardello-Smith, 51, says that he met Diddy while working at a restaurant. The men went to a party, where they met a group of women and later had sex with them. The lawsuit claims that Combs offered Cardello-Smith a drink, which he believes was spiked. He alleges he passed out and woke up to the producer having sex with a woman and telling him, “I did this to you, too.” In a separate suit, an unnamed security guard at a White Party in 2007 accuses Combs of giving him two laced drinks before forcing him into a van and sodomizing him. “I was screaming, I was telling him to stop,” the man said. “It was incredibly painful, and he was acting like it was nothing.” (Cardello-Smith’s lawsuit was later dismissed on statue of limitations grounds.)
Additionally, a John Doe who claims he was “one of the premier entertainers in the Las Vegas adult entertainment scene” is suing Combs for forced labor, sex trafficking, false imprisonment, and sexual battery. In his lawsuit, Doe says that in 2007, Combs hired him for a hotel-room strip tease. Combs allegedly supplied Doe with body oil that made him feel “unusually sleepy, disoriented, confused, exhausted, drowsy, weak, confused, sluggish, numb and alarmed by the sensation of being trapped in his own body.” Doe says that once he was sedated, Combs made him masturbate while the mogul had sex with whatever woman was in attendance. This scenario played out on several occasions in several other cities, Combs having allegedly flown Doe in for parties under the pretense of helping him “advance his musical career,” the suit claims. Instead, Combs allegedly made Doe participate in marathon sexual encounters, using drugs and threats of force. He claims Combs “barricaded” the exits and carried a gun, leaving him feeling “trapped” and “fearful.” Doe also believes Combs raped him on “more than one occasion” and used footage of the orgies to keep him quiet. Combs’s attorneys have denied the accusations.
Similarly, an unnamed plaintiff claims Combs came to his performance at a Los Angeles nightclub in 2015 and then assaulted him at the after-party. The man says he accepted a drink and quickly began to feel groggy, passing out as his fellow guests began engaging in group sex. When he came to, the man alleges, Combs was groping him. He says the producer threatened to torpedo his nascent career if he didn’t go along with Combs’s demands.
Some say Combs recorded footage of the attacks, which he showed to other people.
In her complaint, Joi Dickerson-Neal alleges that in 1991, Combs “intentionally drugged” and sexually assaulted her during a date. She claims that Combs recorded the assault and showed the tape to other people, and while the mogul’s spokesperson has dismissed her complaint as “fabricated,” another woman — Thalia Graves — similarly alleges that Combs drugged and raped her in 2001. After luring her to Bad Boy studios under the pretense of having a meeting, Graves says the producer and one of his bodyguards tied her up and repeatedly raped her, both anally and vaginally. In her federal lawsuit, she claims to have found out 22 years later that the two men not only filmed the alleged attack but played the footage for others.
Others alleged that Combs assaulted them when they were minors.
Although his attorneys have steadfastly maintained that Combs never abused anyone, “man or woman, adult or minor,” many complainants have accused the mogul of assaulting them when they were underage. A few months after Combs’s arrest, for example, a woman identifying herself as Jane Doe filed a lawsuit alleging that when she was 17, Combs; his longtime lieutenant, Harve Pierre; and a third unidentified assailant trafficked her across state lines from Detroit to New York City and gang-raped her at Combs’s Manhattan recording studio. Another woman says that, in 2000, she was 16 and working as a babysitter in the building where one of Diddy’s then-girlfriends lived. Her complaint contends that he saw her outside one day and pressured her to accept a ride home, which she eventually did; he then gave her a drink that left her feeling “groggy and unsteady,” the suit alleges, and had his driver take them to another location, where he raped her.
Another of Combs’s accusers is a man who says that, when he was 17 in 2008, he tried out to be on the rapper’s MTV show, Making the Band. From his first interview with Combs, the John Doe states in his lawsuit, the mogul peppered him with questions about what he would do in the face of sexual advances, before allegedly testing Doe’s responses himself. According to the suit, Combs began to grope Doe and to masturbate, as he “emphasized his power to control plaintiff’s future in the music industry.” In a subsequent interview, he allegedly raped the boy, and in the third, allegedly forced him to fellate his bodyguard.
But the youngest of his alleged victims appears to have been a 10-year-old boy, according to a complaint filed by a John Doe who says that he was left alone with the producer in a New York hotel room in 2005. Doe says he believed he was auditioning to become a rapper, and that Combs claimed he could “make him a star,” before handing him a soda that made him feel “dizzy.” Combs then shoved the boy onto the bed and, according to the complaint, took his penis out of his pants, commanding the boy to “kiss it.” Combs allegedly forced Doe to perform fellatio on him, causing the boy to pass out. When he came to, his complaint contends, “his pants were undone, and his anus and buttocks hurt badly.”
Some also accused Combs’s celebrity friends — including Jay-Z — of sexual assault.
Given the breadth of Combs’s influence and the sheer volume of celebrities photographed at his infamous parties over the years, many have wondered which of the famous people in his orbit may have been implicated in his alleged crimes. Several of the lawsuits name names: Jones, for example, said his fear Combs was grooming him “became a reality” when actor Cuba Gooding Jr. allegedly assaulted him during an outing on the music mogul’s yacht. (He has amended his suit to name Gooding as a defendant, People reported; Gooding hasn’t commented on the accusations.) Jones also claims rapper Yung Miami helped Combs transport drugs, and that she received a monthly stipend from Combs for sex work. While she hasn’t publicly acknowledged Jones’s allegations, she’s denied doing sex work in the past. Of the cases against Diddy, she has said she “can’t speak on these allegations because I wasn’t around at the time. I don’t know that person, and that wasn’t my experience.”
In one of the earliest complaints filed against Combs, Liza Gardner accused the mogul and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall of attacking her and a friend when they joined the men at Hall’s apartment for an after-party in 1990 or 1991. There, Gardner — who later said she was 16 at the time — alleged that she “was coerced into having sex with Combs,” who also assaulted her friend. “Shocked and traumatized” by the encounter, the lawsuit says Gardner was getting dressed when Hall allegedly “barged into the room, pinned her down, and forced [her] to have sex with him.” After she filed, Combs’s attorneys suggested Gardner had “lied without conscience or consequence for financial benefit.”
One of the more shocking anonymous complaints filed against Combs alleges that he raped a 13-year-old girl at an after-party for the 2000 VMAs, while an unnamed male celebrity participated and an unnamed female celebrity watched. In December 2024, that Jane Doe amended her lawsuit to name Jay-Z as a defendant. The rapper, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, denied the allegations in a lengthy statement posted on Roc Nation’s X account. Carter filed to have the case dismissed and is suing Doe’s attorney, Tony Buzbee, accusing him and his legal firm of “shamelessly attempting to extort exorbitant sums from him or else publicly file wildly false horrific allegations” against him. Buzbee responded to the suit by saying he “won’t be bullied or intimidated,” before Jay-Z sued him a second time.
On February 14, however, Doe filed for voluntary dismissal of the case with prejudice, meaning she cannot bring the same suit again in the future. Her attorneys did not comment on her decision to withdraw, though teams for Combs and Carter were quick to celebrate. Carter himself announced in a statement that “the frivolous, fictitious and appalling allegations have been dismissed,” but that “the trauma that my wife, my children, loved ones and I have endured can never be dismissed.” Combs’s lawyers, meanwhile, called Buzbee a “1-800 attorney” intent on filing complaints that are “built on falsehoods.”
Tony Buzbee is behind dozens of the civil suits Combs currently faces.
In October, Buzbee — a Houston-based personal-injury lawyer — held a press conference announcing that he was representing more than 100 of Combs’s accusers and had set up a hotline for other victims and witnesses to come forward. As of December, Buzbee told the BBC that his office had fielded more than 3,000 calls and taken on 300 potential cases against the rapper. As the New York Times reports, Buzbee has previously negotiated settlements for some 30 women who accused NFL quarterback Deshaun Watson of sexual assault and/or harassment and for families of concertgoers who died in the 2021 Astroworld crowd crush. Combs’s lawyers have characterized Buzbee as an opportunist who created a “reckless media circus” in his “clear attempts to garner publicity.” Of the Buzbee complaints, they said in a statement to the Cut, “No many how many lawsuits are filed — especially by individuals who refuse to put their own names behind their claims — it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex-trafficked anyone … We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason.”
Several reports have outlined additional allegations of Combs’s abusive behavior.
In May 2024, Rolling Stone published a wide-ranging story on Combs, including a new claim dating all the way back to his stint at Howard University in the 1980s. According to one anonymous alumnus, Combs once showed up outside a girlfriend’s dorm and “screamed and hollered and acted a stone fool until she came downstairs.” When she came outside, the source recalled, Combs proceeded to beat her with what appeared to be a belt.
In another jarring incident from the rapper’s past, he is accused of attacking late music executive Shakir Stewart, whom Porter started dating after she and Combs broke up. Rolling Stone reported that, at a wedding all three attended, Combs went to Stewart’s hotel room and broke a chair over Stewart’s head, according to Stewart’s mother and two of his close friends.
Meanwhile, several documentaries have surfaced new details about Combs’s alleged abuse. In January 2025, Peacock released Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, featuring interviews with former employees, music-industry colleagues, and one of his accusers. The singer Al B. Sure — who has a son with Porter — suggested that Combs may have had some involvement in his ex’s 2018 death from lobar pneumonia, while a former bodyguard alleged that Combs had physically abused Porter while they were together. Mylah Morales, a makeup artist, recalled Combs beating Ventura in a hotel room in 2010, and Sara Rivers, a member of Da Band, claimed Combs groped her and threatened her bandmates during the filming of Making the Band 2. An ex–Bad Boy employee, who was purportedly tasked with “recruiting” women for Combs’s parties, alleged that his boss once spent 24 hours locked in a room with two girls who were “for sure” underage, while a woman who appeared to be Ashley Parham accused Combs of “violently” raping her with a TV remote while holding her at knifepoint in 2018. During the alleged attack, Combs invited his entourage to join him in the rape, with one employee threatening that they could sell her to “anyone in the world.”
In a statement to producers, attorneys for Combs said he “unequivocally denies the baseless allegations being circulated in connection with this documentary.” He’s since filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against NBC Universal, Peacock, and the production company Ample, arguing that they “knowingly and recklessly amplified outrageous lies against Mr. Combs, including false accusations of serial murder, sexual assault of minors, and sex trafficking when there is no credible evidence to support any of these heinous allegations.”
Days after Peacock released its documentary, Investigation Discovery dropped its own docuseries: The Fall of Diddy, which aired a handful of similar but different allegations. Danyel Smith, formerly the editor of Vibe magazine, recalled an incident in which Combs told her he would see her “dead in a trunk” if she refused to show him cover images ahead of publication. A former personal chef said Combs pushed her so hard during a disagreement that she flew through a doorway and landed on the ground. Wanita Denise Woodgett of Danity Kane said Combs regularly berated and degraded her and her fellow bandmates, particularly Aubrey O’Day, whom Woodgett said he sexually harassed. Kat Pasion, who dated Combs from 2018 to 2019, gestured to a nonconsensual incident in which he allegedly “forced” her into sexual contact.
And in an addendum to the series, Phillip Pines — Combs’s senior executive assistant from 2019 to 2021 — rehashed allegations he’d previously outlined in a lawsuit against the mogul. Pines spoke about Combs’s “Wild King Nights,” events that mirror the Freak Offs described in the federal indictment. Pines said he would pick up supplies — lights, alcohol, drugs, lube, electronics, “male libido supplements,” sex toys — and although he wasn’t in the room while the alleged orgies were in full swing, he did notice that Combs invited “girls who were a little bit under the radar, who didn’t have a lot of influence,” Pines said. When the Wild King Nights were over, he’d do the “emergency cleanup” of the hotel rooms, he added.
“When you get there, you see the wreckage,” he claimed. “You see the bodily fluids, you see the used condoms, the baby oil half-used, the Astroglide oozing down the side of the bottle.” There might be broken glass, even blood, he said; very often, there would be “stains on furniture, stains on sheets that we needed to remove.” And there would, allegedly, be lubricant everywhere: “I mean, kid you not, you could slip because there was baby oil on the floor.”
Pines also claimed to have witnessed Combs behave violently toward women, and said he once experienced Combs’s alleged sexual bullying firsthand. After one party, his boss summoned him to take shots with the remaining guests, Pines recalled. “I remember hearing the words ‘prove your loyalty to me, king.’ He grabbed me by the shoulders, kind of gave me a quick massage like a coach would give a player who’s about to enter the game, handed me a condom, pushed me to a girl that was on the couch.” Pines claims to have asked the woman for consent, “performed for a little bit,” and then fled as soon as Combs left. He said he only went through with it because he’d heard about Combs assaulting previous employees and witnessed his explosive temper. “I just thought to myself, If I don’t do this, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
In response to the ID docuseries and Pines’s interview, Diddy’s lawyers once again refuted their contents, calling the project an amalgamation of “fabricated accusations” that were “clearly intended to present a one-sided and prejudicial narrative.”
What happens to Combs next?
Since his arrest, Combs’s attorneys have attempted to get the case dismissed. They’ve alleged without evidence that federal prosecutors orchestrated a smear campaign, which included leaking the Ventura footage to CNN — an accusation prosecutors strongly denied. Defense attorneys have also been working to get Combs freed on bond, to no avail. Three judges have denied those requests, ruling that Combs poses too great a threat to witnesses and victims. Prosecutors have pointed to messages Combs allegedly sent to family members from behind bars, in violation of prison rules, instructing them on how to rehabilitate his image, “reach for this jury,” and influence jurors. Meanwhile, Combs has filed a $50 million lawsuit against a grand jury witness who claimed to have seen footage of the mogul sexually assaulting celebrities and minors, perhaps proving prosecutors’ point about potential retaliation.
Combs’s attorneys have also offered a glimpse into their defense, arguing in a January 2025 motion that the Freak Off videos prosecutors possess actually “confirm Mr. Combs’s innocence.” The videos depicting Ventura, his team claimed, show “private sexual activity between fully consenting adults in a long-term relationship.” Further, it called prosecutors’ characterization of the tapes “puritanical” and sexist, “because the government’s theory perpetuates stereotypes of female victimhood and lack of agency.” The defense wanted the court to share footage of the Freak Offs, a request a judge reportedly denied, ruling that doing so could endanger Combs’s alleged victims.
This story has been updated.