Behind the calamitous fall of hip-hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs
LOS ANGELES — On a late afternoon in April, about two dozen music-industry tastemakers gathered at the 17,000-square-foot Holmby Hills mansion of Sean “Diddy” Combs for a preview of his first studio album in nearly two decades.
In one of his living rooms, attendees sipped cocktails as they admired a striking painting by Kerry James Marshall titled “Past Times,” which Combs purchased in 2018 at auction for $21.1 million. Combs amassed his fortune first through music, as a hip-hop producer, artist and founder of Bad Boy Entertainment, the label that launched the career of the late The Notorious B.I.G., among others. He’d later added lucrative fashion and liquor companies to his ventures, most notably Sean John and Cîroc vodka.
Combs, who turned 54 in November, had convened this crowd to hype his new R&B label, Love Records, and to play tracks from his own “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” featuring dozens of guest stars, from Justin Bieber and Mary J. Blige to Summer Walker and the Weeknd.
Ensconced in an upstairs music-listening room, Combs greeted each of his guests with a warm smile and a handshake and told the crowd about the album’s mission — “to bring love back to R&B music.”
Within seven months, Combs’ gilded life was upended by a spate of misconduct accusations that had him fighting for his business and personal reputation.
Four separate plaintiffs have filed civil lawsuits against Combs in the last month accusing him of rape, sex-trafficking a minor, assault and a litany of other alleged abuses, imperiling his empire and sending shock waves through the music industry. Combs and his attorneys have denied the accusations.
His former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, the singer known as Cassie, accused him of rape and forcing her to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him, along with repeated physical assaults. (Combs quickly settled the suit.) Joi Dickerson-Neal accused Combs in a suit of drugging and raping her in 1991, recording the attack and then distributing the footage without her consent. Liza Gardner filed a third suit in which she claimed Combs and Guy singer Aaron Hall sexually assaulted her. The
