Another day, another six lawsuits have been filed accusing Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of sexual assault.
These six are the first of what is expected to be a flood of lawsuits that will be filed on behalf of Combs’ alleged victims by Texas-based lawyer Tony Buzbee, who revealed at a press conference earlier this month that he was working with 120 victims to bring litigation targeting Diddy.
That number could increase sharply after a specific toll-free phone line set up by Buzbee’s law firm for people with allegations against Combs reportedly received thousands of calls.
Combs, currently in jail after being charged with sex trafficking and racketeering last month, continues to deny all the allegations made against him.
Responding to the latest lawsuits, a spokesperson says, “the press conference and 1-800 number that preceded today’s barrage of filings were clear attempts to garner publicity. Mr Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defences, and the integrity of the judicial process”.
The new lawsuits have been filed in the New York courts under New York City’s Gender Motivated Violence Act. The litigation involves four men - one of whom was a minor at the time of the alleged assault - and two women, with none of the six named in the legal filings.
The assaults alleged in the lawsuits took place over nearly three decades, from the 1990s to just three years ago, most occurring at parties hosted or attended by Combs.
One man says he was hired to work as a security guard at one of Combs’s famous white parties in 2006 and, while there, the musician drugged and sexually assaulted him. One of the female accusers alleges she was violently attacked and raped in a bathroom at a Notorious BIG party in 1995.
The most recent alleged assault occurred in 2021, with a man who says he was drugged and sexually assaulted by multiple men at a party, and that he “distinctly recalls seeing Combs above him, naked, at one point during the assault”.
One of the male accusers was just sixteen at the time of the alleged assault, which took place at one of Combs’s white parties in 1998. He says he was speaking to Combs about pursuing a career in the music business when the musician abruptly ordered that he drop his trousers.
He says Combs stated that exposing his genitals in that way was a “rite of passage” to becoming a music star, adding: “Don’t you want to break into the business?”
Out of fear and anxiety, the accuser complied with Combs’s demand, with the musician subsequently cupping and holding his genitals, before leaving the teenager and returning to the party. The accuser explains that it was only later that he realised the incident was sexual assault.
A number of the accusers say that Combs used or threatened violence, including making death threats. The other female accuser says she was sexually assaulted after being invited to a photo shoot in 2004, with Combs telling her she would be killed if she resisted.
Another of the male accusers claims he was sexually assaulted in the stockroom at Macy’s flagship store, with Combs subsequently telling him to “shut up or I’ll kill you”.
The people represented in these lawsuits are not the first to allege that Diddy made death threats towards them. Writing in the New York Times in July, Danyel Smith, the former editor of Vibe magazine, alleged that Combs had threatened that he would see her “dead in the trunk of a car”. After getting her lawyer involved, Smith says that Combs later “faxed over an apology” for the threat.
The latest statement from Combs’ spokesperson insists that “truth will prevail” when the flood of lawsuits against him finally get to court, adding that the truth is, “Mr Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone – adult or minor, man or woman”.