The man best known as Puff Daddy reigned supreme over the world of hip hop. Now he’s facing allegations of rape, assault and sex trafficking
It was supposed to be the start of another new chapter in the rich and varied career of Sean Combs. The man who was Puffy, then Puff Daddy, then P Diddy, then Diddy, then Swag, then Puff Daddy again, and most recently Love, visited Britain last autumn to promote his first solo album for 17 years, The Love Album: Off the Grid.
Combs was enjoying being appreciated, as he so often does. Two months earlier the producer, label executive, occasional rapper and business mogul had appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards in New Jersey, where he was feted with the Global Icon Award for his seismic contribution to music since the mid-1990s, and ran through a medley of hits, including I’ll Be Missing You and Bad Boys For Life.
During a whistle-stop promotional visit to the UK, he made a headline appearance on The Graham Norton Show (“I hope you’re in the mood for Love tonight because Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is in the house!” Norton trilled, introducing an often incoherent and, sorry, noticeably puffier Combs than many remembered), performed with the south London rapper Giggs, and threw a star-studded 54th birthday party for himself at a luxury hotel in Marylebone, where Naomi Campbell and Idris Elba were among well-wishers.
On the same day, he received his 14th Grammy nomination, and first for two decades. “Extremely humble, grateful and blessed,” he said in an Instagram video taken outside the hotel’s lobby. Whatever name he was going by, Combs was back, it seemed. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he rambled. And it really was to be the start of a new chapter – only not the kind he planned.
One week after Combs’s visit to London, he was sued for sexual assault by Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend, who was once signed to his label, Bad Boy, as the singer Cassie. In a lawsuit, Ventura claimed she was trapped in a cycle of abuse and violence by Combs. She alleged he raped and beat her over 10 years, plied her with drugs and alcohol, and forced her to engage in sexual activity with male prostitutes over a period of years and in numerous cities – meaning she was a victim of sex trafficking.
They settled the legal case one day later. No details were given, but Combs’s lawyer reiterated his denial of all allegations: “Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing.” Yet three more lawsuits alleging similar misconduct followed – allegations that, again, Combs and his lawyer have strongly denied and described as “sickening” and “complete lies” that would be addressed in court.
Throughout all this, as social media fired up the rumour mill, Combs’s once bulletproof reputation fell apart, and commercial partners started to desert him. Then he largely went to ground. He wasn’t present to see himself fail to win the Grammy last month. And if he thought the matter might fade from public consciousness merely with his absence, well, he was wrong.
On Monday, Combs’s properties in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by officials from US Homeland Security in connection with a “federal sex trafficking investigation”, according to the US network Fox 11. The following day, Combs’s lawyer complained about a “gross overuse of military-level force” in the raids, which saw two of the music producer’s sons handcuffed, and stated the investigation was “nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits”. Combs, who was photographed in Miami earlier in the week, has not been arrested nor had his travel restricted.
Still, the drama and scale of the simultaneous raids was unmissable. Suddenly, mainstream news and entertainment channels – the outlets he has mastered and manipulated for decades – were full of stories again about the potential downfall of a once untouchable mogul. “Mo’ money, mo’ problems,” so the song he produced and featured on went, 27 years ago. As he climbed towards billionaire status, that prophecy didn’t seem to apply to Combs himself. Now it does.
Combs was born in Harlem, New York City, and raised in the suburbs. Combs’s mother, Janice, was a model and teaching assistant, while his father, Melvin, was “a drug dealer and a hustler” who was shot dead when he was three years old. “I have his hustler’s mentality, his hustler’s spirit,” Combs has said.
Nicknamed “Puff” as he would huff and puff when he was angry, the young Combs was an operator: at Howard University he promoted parties, then left after a few terms to join Uptown Records as an intern, before forming his own label, Bad Boy Records, in 1993.
Nobody – perhaps not even Combs – would say that he has ever been possessed of remarkable talents as a musician. His rapping is weak (it is well understood that his lyrics are ghostwritten), his dancing limited, and despite being a legendary hip hop producer, he doesn’t make beats.
Yet he knew what sounded good, what looked good, and – crucially – what would sell. In common with Michael Jackson, Combs is obsessed with P.T. Barnum (“my muse,” he called him last year), the great American showman who didn’t care what he put on stage so long as it was entertaining.
Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/sean-diddy-combs-rise-and-fall-me-too-rap-prince-harry/
