We may have entered a new year, but the commotion surrounding Sean Combs – aka P Diddy – and the decades’ worth of sex trafficking, sexual violence and racketeering he’s been accused of is far from letting up. Since December, the disgraced rap mogul has lived behind bars in a detention centre in New York, where he will stay until his official trial begins on May 5. He’s been denied bail three times.
But if Combs thought the uproar around the scandal would settle before then, he better keep dreaming. On January 14, US streaming service Peacock is set to release a new documentary about his case, Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, with the film featuring interviews with the 55-year-old’s former bodyguard, intern, producer and make-up artist. “He thought if people feared him, they would respect him,” one insider says in the trailer.
The documentary is set to provide more horrific details of Combs’ alleged manipulative behaviour, repeated instances of sexual abuse and his firm grip on the world of celebrity (whether concerning his A-list inner circle or the star-studded guest lists of his infamous parties).
However, this documentary isn’t the first time people close to Combs have called him out publicly for his behaviour – keep reading to discover the famous faces that have taken it upon themselves to stand up to him over the years.
50 Cent
50 Cent was one of the biggest names in hip-hop when he emerged in the early 2000s – and he’s been embroiled in beef with Combs ever since. Although years of jabs began when 50 Cent (real name Curtis James Jackson III) accused Combs of being involved in the murders of Notorious B.I.G and Tupac in 2006, things have heated up in the last few years.
When the lawsuits against Combs began to pile up, Jackson became one of the first (and as of yet, only) names in hip-hop to publicly denounce him – notably sharing memes ridiculing Combs on social media amid the raids of his homes in May.
During an interview with The Enthusiast Podcast in September, Jackson insisted that he “didn’t participate” in his nemesis’ freak-off parties: “I’m just not with all that freaky sh**. Like, all of the stuff he’s doing, I’m not into that type of stuff. I’m just a little more, maybe you could say, basic or normal.”
Speaking to People a month later, Jackson defended his comments about Combs. “Look, it seems like I’m doing some extremely outrageous things, but I haven’t. It’s really me just saying what I’ve been saying for 10 years,” the 49-year-old said.
Aside from comments in the press and laughing at his foe’s comeuppance on social media, Jackson is taking things one step further: he’s producing a docuseries about Combs with the help of streaming giant Netflix.
Although the series was announced over a year ago (in December 2023, when Combs had only four lawsuits against him, now they’re in the hundreds), Jackson told GMA news last month: “It’s a difficult project because every day there’s new accusations coming out, it’s new things that happened… I don’t think anyone could have anticipated this many accusations and things that have taken place.”
Jaguar Wright
R&B singer-songwriter Jaguar Wright has made headlines in recent years for the accusations she’s made against celebrities, Combs included. In October, Wright appeared on Piers Morgan’s show Uncensored and was asked about Combs’ then-recent arrest. “Until him and his cohort are all held to account publicly and legally, the victims are not safe,” Wright told Morgan. She recalled that legendary singer Patti Labelle once told a young Wright to “avoid” Combs whenever she could. “I think he’s one of the most dangerous people I’ve ever met,” she continued, referring to Combs as “the devil”. “Everyone knew he was the devil, he’s been the devil for 30 years. He’s been covered and protected.”
In the same interview, Wright alleged that she had been “screaming” that alongside Diddy, Jay-Z (who she used to perform with in the early 2000s) has also been a “monster” for years. After lawyers for Jay Z and Beyoncé contacted Morgan to say that the allegations Wright made were “totally false”, Morgan was forced to apologise.
Mark Curry
Best known for his verse on Combs’ signature 2001 song Bad Boys for Life, although Combs was at one point in time Mark Curry’s protégé, his rap career was ultimately short-lived.
In recent years Curry has become an outspoken critic of Combs. When he appeared as a guest on the Mail Online’s podcast series The Trial of Diddy last year, Curry claimed that Combs deceived him and took credit for a number of songs he’d written, all while promising Curry he could release an album of his own on Combs’ famous label, Bad Boy Records – which never happened.
Mark Curry alleges that at the parties he did attend, bottles of spirit were kept separate for male and female guests, suggesting that narcotics may have been added to the drinks reserved for women
In an interview from December 2023, Curry spoke about Combs’ headline-making parties. “They’d be like, ‘We’re having a party tonight, but this ain’t your kind of party,’” he recalled. “I’d be like, ‘Yeah… I don’t want to go’.” He also alleges that at the parties he did attend, bottles of spirit were kept separate for male and female guests, suggesting that narcotics may have been added to the drinks reserved for women. “So when you’d get up, they’d be like, ‘Don’t touch them bottles right there, and only drink those bottles right there,’’ he said.
Drugs have been a huge part of the scandal surrounding Combs, with many of his victims claiming that they were coerced into having sex at his freak-off parties with drugs, while others have claimed they were drugged and subsequently sexually assaulted by the hip-hop mogul.
Aubrey O’Day
Singer Aubrey O’Day was an original member of Danity Kane – a band formed and managed by Combs via his MTV reality show Making the Band in the 2000s. The R&B girl group achieved moderate success in the US, however in 2008 O’Day was personally kicked out of the group by Combs, with him claiming that the fame she achieved as part of the roup had “changed her”.
“We were scared to death with what would happen with Puff each day,” O’Day told Variety in 2019. “Diddy was one of the most intense people you could ever work with. I experienced everything from race [remarks] to sexism, and a lot of it was scary.”
Appearing as a guest on the popular podcast Call Her Daddy in 2022, O’Day claimed that she was removed from the group by Combs because she refused to do things he had requested “in other areas” outside of music.
Katt Williams
In January 2024, stand-up comedian Williams appeared on a viral episode of the podcast Club Shay Shay, hosted by professional American footballer Shannon Sharpe. When Combs’ name arose during their conversation, Williams advised listeners to avoid ever attending one Combs’ parties: “Because P Diddy be wanting to party, and you gotta say no. You gotta say no.”
Later in the episode, Williams claimed that all of Combs’ lies would be exposed and that he would be “catching hell in 2024”. A short time later, lawsuits against Combs began rolling in, with the shocking details of his alleged abuse coming to light.
Wendy Williams
Although Combs appeared on Williams’ iconic talk show as recently as 2017, the former broadcaster has shared her fair share of criticisms of the rapper and entrepreneur over the years, especially when she worked on New York’s hip-hop radio circuit in the 90s.
In her 2004 biography, Williams accused Combs of getting her fired from her presenting gig at Hot 97 radio station in 1998 for speculating about his personal life on her show, writing that she’d “never forget” the hell he put her through.
However, Williams’ most notable hint towards Combs’ behaviour came on her self-titled talk show in 2015. When discussing Combs’ split from partner Cassie Ventura, Williams suggested that Combs might be a controlling character.
“My thing about when you date a mogul, it’s a really difficult thing to avoid them,” she said on the show. “He can hire a plane right now… Land on the roof of the hotel she’s saying, pay people off at the front desk, ‘Give me a key and let me up in her room’.”
In November 2023, Ventura filed a lawsuit against Combs alleging that he subjected her to a “decade-long cycle of abuse, violence and sex trafficking” during their relationship. Months later, a video from 2016 was obtained by CNN showing Combs punching, kicking and dragging Ventura.
When Combs was arrested in September, Williams told People: “What is really weird is that I have been told by so many people, ‘Wendy, you called it,’” she said. Speaking of the 2016 footage of Ventura, Williams called the video “horrific”. “But now you have to think, ‘How many more times? How many people? How many more women?’ It’s just so horrible.”
