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Sean Combs, the hitmaking hip-hop mogul also called Puff Daddy or Diddy, is going through a number of accusations of sexual assault. In late 2023, he reached a settlement in an explosive lawsuit with Cassandra Ventura, who had alleged that Mr. Combs, 54, raped and bodily abused her over a couple of decade. As a part of “an ongoing investigation,” brokers from the Division of Homeland Safety on March 25 raided houses within the Los Angeles space and Miami linked to Mr. Combs. A key driver of hip-hop’s takeover of mainstream pop, Mr. Combs has had a profession in music, style and TV for greater than 30 years that has been periodically interrupted by run-ins with the legislation.
1991
An Formidable Intern’s Rocky Ascent
Mr. Combs, a comparatively unknown 22-year-old radio station intern, co-hosted a celeb basketball sport with the rapper Heavy D. A stampede erupted among the many jammed crowd contained in the oversold Metropolis Faculty of New York gymnasium, killing 9 individuals.
A report commissioned by Mayor David N. Dinkins criticized Mr. Combs for permitting inexperienced underlings to plan the occasion and for tricking ticket consumers in regards to the occasion’s charitable intentions.
“Metropolis Faculty is one thing I cope with each day of my life,” Mr. Combs mentioned in 1998. “However the issues that I cope with can on no account measure as much as the ache that the households cope with. I simply pray for the households and pray for the youngsters who misplaced their lives each day.”
A yr later, as an intern at Uptown Data, Mr. Combs’s manufacturing on the remix of Jodeci’s “Come and Speak to Me” helped the one to promote 3 million copies, saying him as a rising expertise. He went on to assist produce remixes for Heavy D, the reggae artist Tremendous Cat, and “Actual Love” by the R&B singer Mary J. Blige, which launched the rapper the Infamous B.I.G.
1994
Beginning Unhealthy Boy Data
Mr. Combs’s Unhealthy Boy Data, based a yr earlier after his termination from Uptown, scored its first main success, because the Infamous B.I.G.’s “Able to Die” album peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200. The debut drew crucial approval for its portrayal of “each the joy of drug dealing and the stress brought on by threats from different sellers, robbers, the police and fogeys,” as The New York Occasions wrote on the time, and spawned the hit information “Juicy,” “One Extra Probability” and “Massive Poppa.” Up to now, the album has been licensed six-times platinum.
His work on Blige’s “My Life” album that yr garnered his first Grammy nomination (for greatest R&B album).
1997
Lacking the Infamous B.I.G.
Mr. Combs charted among the most notable accolades of his profession earlier than and after the dying of B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, who was killed in a drive-by capturing on March 9, six months after the killing of his rival Tupac Shakur.
Opening the yr with the discharge of “Can’t No one Maintain Me Down,” Mr. Combs’s first single because the artist Puff Daddy, the track spent six weeks at No. 1 forward of the anticipated launch of a full-length album. 4 months after Wallace’s dying, “No Means Out,” credited to Puff Daddy & the Household, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, promoting 561,000 copies in its first week and spawning a number of chart-topping singles. The most important of these, “I’ll Be Lacking You,” featured Wallace’s widow, Religion Evans, and the R&B group 112. The requiem, which samples the Police’s “Each Breath You Take,” spent 11 weeks atop Billboard’s Sizzling 100 chart. The LP earned Combs Grammy wins for greatest rap album and greatest rap efficiency by a duo or group.
That yr, 4 of the ten songs that reached No. 1 on the Sizzling 100 belonged to Unhealthy Boy Data.
1999
Arrests for Allegations of Public Violence
After a dispute over the usage of footage in a music video, the file producer Steve Stoute claimed Mr. Combs and his bodyguards beat him with a champagne bottle, a phone, a chair and their fists throughout an April incident.
Mr. Combs confronted as much as seven years in jail had he been convicted of felony assault. As an alternative, Mr. Stoute requested the Manhattan district legal professional to drop the costs after Mr. Combs publicly apologized. Mr. Combs had mentioned he was upset that Mr. Stoute, an Interscope Data govt, used footage of him being crucified on a cross within the video for the rapper Nas’s “Hate Me Now.”
“Puff soaked Interscope workplaces with champagne bottles on Steve/And Steve thought the drama is on me,” Nas wrote in a 2002 track that immortalized the altercation.
That December, an argument broke out at a Manhattan nightclub the place Mr. Combs was spending an evening out with the actress and singer Jennifer Lopez, his girlfriend on the time.
At the very least two individuals had been injured by gunfire. The main points and timeline of the interplay remained muddled all through a extremely publicized trial. The famed legal professional Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. defended Mr. Combs and a number of witnesses testified that the music govt had held a gun. Mr. Combs was charged with gun possession and bribery however discovered not responsible. His one-time protégé, the rapper Shyne, born Jamal Barrow, acquired a 10-year jail sentence for assault, gun possession and reckless endangerment.
2002
Making the Band by Making Calls for
In 2002, Mr. Combs took over MTV’s “Making the Band,” a actuality present geared toward assembling budding rappers and singers into performing teams. The seasons produced the ensemble acts Da Band and Danity Kane, and portrayed Mr. Combs as a demanding boss, who famously made members stroll from Manhattan to Brooklyn to safe him cheesecake.
In recent times, a number of band members have spoken out towards what they described as mistreatment from Mr. Combs and dangerous contracts. Da Band’s Freddy P described Mr. Combs as the explanation he “hates” life in an Instagram put up final yr.
That summer time, Mr. Combs terminated the label’s three way partnership with Arista, leaving the cope with full possession of Unhealthy Boy Data and its again catalog. Regardless of the label’s run of R&B hits and makes an attempt to discover a rap act of the magnitude of the Infamous B.I.G., Puff Daddy remained its most dependable star.
2003
Again at No. 1
“Shake Ya Tailfeather,” a single from the “Unhealthy Boys II” soundtrack carried out by Nelly, Murphy Lee and P. Diddy, as Mr. Combs was then recognized, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 100 and garnered Mr. Combs’s second Grammy Award for greatest rap efficiency by a duo or group (and third general).
2004-2013
Constructing an Empire Past Music
Mr. Combs expanded his enterprise empire past the file trade, incomes prime males’s put on designer honors from the Council of Vogue Designers of America for his Sean John clothes model (2004), forging a partnership to launch Ciroc vodka (2009) and founding Revolt TV (2013). His portfolio in 2022 is estimated by Forbes to be price $1 billion.
2015
One other Arrest on Assault Prices
In 2015, Mr. Combs was arrested and charged with assault with a lethal weapon, making terrorist threats and battery after an altercation with a U.C.L.A. soccer coach. In a information launch, the college described the weapon as a kettlebell. Justin Combs, Mr. Combs’s son, started enjoying soccer on the college in 2012.
The Los Angeles County district legal professional’s workplace mentioned that prosecutors determined towards pursuing felony costs after the incident, based on The Washington Put up.
November 2023
An Explosive Lawsuit Interrupts Combs’s Hip-Hop Celebration
Amid the commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop, Mr. Combs was honored for his pioneering function within the growth of the style with a quotation as a world icon on the MTV Video Music Awards in September, on the heels of being acknowledged with a lifetime achievement honor on the BET Awards in 2022.
In November, Mr. Combs’s “The Love Album: Off the Grid” was nominated for a Grammy for greatest progressive R&B album.
Later that month, the R&B singer Cassie, who was as soon as signed to Unhealthy Boy and who had a prolonged romantic partnership with Mr. Combs, filed a lawsuit in federal courtroom that accused him of rape, and of repeated bodily abuse over a couple of decade.
Cassie, whose full identify is Casandra Ventura, mentioned within the swimsuit that not lengthy after she met Mr. Combs in 2005, when she was 19, he started a sample of management and abuse that included plying her with medicine, beating her and forcing her to have intercourse with a succession of male prostitutes whereas he filmed the encounters. In 2018, the swimsuit mentioned, close to the top of their relationship, Mr. Combs pressured his manner into her dwelling and raped her.
Via a lawyer, Mr. Combs mentioned that he “vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations.”
In the future after Ms. Ventura filed the swimsuit, the 2 events reached an settlement to resolve the case, although they disclosed no particulars in regards to the phrases of the settlement. “I’ve determined to resolve this matter amicably on phrases that I’ve some stage of management,” Ms. Ventura mentioned in a press release. Mr. Combs mentioned in a press release: “Now we have determined to resolve this matter amicably. I want Cassie and her household all the most effective. Love.”
November to December 2023
Extra Accusations of Sexual Misconduct Emerge
One week after he settled the swimsuit with Ms. Ventura, Mr. Combs was accused in a second lawsuit of sexually assaulting one other girl, Joi Dickerson-Neal, in 1991.
In her swimsuit, Ms. Dickerson-Neal accused Mr. Combs of drugging her throughout a night out in New York when she was on a break from Syracuse College, the place she was a scholar. She was finally pushed to a spot Mr. Combs was staying, the place based on the lawsuit, she accused him of raping her and recording the encounter on video.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Combs mentioned he “fully denied and rejected” the claims of misconduct.
The lawsuit was filed in New York State Supreme Court docket in Manhattan shortly earlier than the deadline for the Grownup Survivors Act, a state legislation that allowed individuals who mentioned they had been sexually abused to file claims even after the statute of limitations had expired.
Lower than two weeks later, a 3rd girl accused Mr. Combs in a lawsuit that mentioned he and two different males raped her inside a New York recording studio when she was 17 years outdated.
The lady, who will not be named in courtroom papers, mentioned she met two associates of Mr. Combs at a lounge within the Detroit space in 2003, when she was within the eleventh grade. Within the criticism, she alleged that they took her on a non-public aircraft to New York, the place the three males gave her copious quantities of medication and alcohol, and took turns raping her within the studio’s toilet as she drifted out and in of consciousness.
Once they had been achieved, the swimsuit mentioned, the girl fell right into a fetal place in a rest room, mendacity on the ground in ache. She mentioned she was quickly pushed to an airport and placed on a aircraft again to Michigan.
Mr. Combs once more denied wrongdoing: “Let me be completely clear: I didn’t do any of the terrible issues being alleged,” he mentioned in a press release. “I’ll struggle for my identify, my household and for the reality.”
February 2024
Music Producer Lil Rod Information $30 Million Sexual Misconduct Lawsuit
The producer Rodney Jones Jr., referred to as Lil Rod, accused Mr. Combs in a lawsuit of constructing undesirable sexual contact and of forcing him to rent prostitutes and take part in intercourse acts as they labored on Mr. Combs’s 2023 album, “The Love Album: Off the Grid.”
In his criticism, filed in Federal District Court docket in Manhattan, Mr. Jones mentioned that Mr. Combs grabbed his genitals with out consent, and that he additionally tried to “groom” Mr. Jones into having intercourse with one other man, telling him it was “a standard apply within the music trade.”
Mr. Combs, by means of his legal professional, denied the allegations. In a press release, Shawn Holley referred to as the swimsuit “a clear try and garner headlines.” He added: “Now we have overwhelming, indeniable proof that his claims are full lies.”
March 2024
Federal Brokers Raid Two Properties Tied to Mr. Combs
Federal brokers from the Division of Homeland Safety on March 25 raided houses within the Los Angeles space and Miami linked to Mr. Combs. Responding to questions on information reviews of a raid on Mr. Combs’s residences that day, Homeland Safety Investigations mentioned in a press release: “Earlier right now, Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI) New York executed legislation enforcement actions as a part of an ongoing investigation, with help from HSI Los Angeles, HSI Miami and our native legislation enforcement companions. We are going to present additional data because it turns into out there.”
A spokesperson for Mr. Combs didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The prison inquiry is being carried out by federal prosecutors within the Southern District of New York and federal brokers with Homeland Safety Investigations, a law-enforcement official mentioned.
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