Combs, Sean

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      Dawn Richard Sues Sean Combs, Alleging Threats and Groping

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      The lawsuit was filed by Dawn Richard, a member of groups assembled by Mr. Combs. A lawyer for Mr. Combs called the suit “manufactured” to get a “payday.”Dawn Richard, a singer who came to prominence on the MTV reality show “Making the Band,” filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the music mogul Sean Combs, accusing him of threatening her, groping her and flying into “frenzied, unpredictable rages” while he oversaw her career.A former member of the now-defunct groups Danity Kane and Diddy — Dirty Money, which were both assembled by Mr. Combs, Ms. Richard detailed a litany of complaints from her time working with him, alleging a culture in which her boss would order her to strip down to her underwear, smack her behind, throw objects such as laptops and food, and at times fail to pay her for her work.In response to the lawsuit, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, Erica Wolff, said in a statement that Ms. Richard had “manufactured a series of false claims all in the hopes of trying to get a payday,” noting that the lawsuit came shortly before Ms. Richard is slated to release a new album.In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, Ms. Richard detailed several occasions from as far back as 2009 in which she said she witnessed Mr. Combs physically abuse his former girlfriend Cassie, whose lawsuit last year prompted a cascade of civil claims against Mr. Combs. Once, the lawsuit said, Ms. Richard saw Mr. Combs push Cassie, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, against a wall and choke her, then throw a hot pan of eggs at her.“On many occasions, Ms. Richard tried to intervene, offering Ms. Ventura support and encouragement to leave Mr. Combs,” the lawsuit says. The court papers accuse Mr. Combs of responding with threats such as “you want to die today” and “I end people.”This is the eighth sexual misconduct lawsuit that Mr. Combs has faced since Ms. Ventura sued last November; the two sides settled in one day. Mr. Combs, who is also facing a federal investigation into his conduct, has described the civil suits as “sickening allegations” from people looking for “a quick payday,” and his lawyers have been fighting them in court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For Some Sex Assault Accusers, This Local Law Has Become a Last Resort

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The N.Y. Law That Underpins Several Lawsuits Against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

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      The law, which underpins several civil suits against Sean Combs, is the only remaining tool for reviving older claims in New York.In New York, where state laws that extended the time to file sex abuse suits have lapsed, plaintiffs have found one remaining tool: Section 10-1105 of New York City’s administrative code.The provision, known as the Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law, has provided the basis for recent lawsuits against the Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler; the luxury real estate agents Tal and Oren Alexander; New York City’s Department of Correction; and the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, who is a defendant in four.“This statute continues to provide an avenue of relief for survivors,” said Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for a woman who sued Mr. Combs under the gender-motivated violence law, accusing him and two other men of gang-raping her in a New York recording studio in 2003. He has vehemently denied the allegations.Lawyers say they have been increasingly using the law, first passed by the City Council in 2000, since the expiration last year of the New York state law that had allowed for the filing of lawsuits over sexual abuse allegations even after the statute of limitations had passed. The state law, one of many adopted around the country in the wake of a surge in #MeToo complaints, led to more than 3,000 state court filings relating to claims that often dated back decades — in addition to thousands more filed under an earlier law for people who said they were sexually abused as children.Now plaintiffs are often relying on the city law that — because of a 2022 amendment — established a two-year window in which plaintiffs can sue over older allegations. That window closes at the start of March 2025, and the claims have to be related to events said to have occurred in New York City.In recent months, though, defense lawyers have mounted significant legal challenges to the city’s amendment. They have argued that the City Council infringed on the jurisdiction of state lawmakers, and in several cases, judges have issued decisions limiting the amendment’s scope.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs Fights Lawsuit by Music Producer Alleging Sexual Misconduct

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      The hip-hop mogul’s lawyers are seeking the dismissal of a suit from Rodney Jones Jr., arguing it is baseless and “replete with far-fetched tales of misconduct.”Lawyers for Sean Combs filed court papers on Monday seeking the dismissal of a civil suit by a music producer who accused Mr. Combs of making unwanted sexual contact, arguing that the lawsuit was baseless and “replete with far-fetched tales of misconduct.”The filing, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, is the latest effort by the hip-hop impresario’s legal team to dismiss a series of recent lawsuits that accuse him of sexual assault and misconduct. The suit by Rodney Jones Jr., a music producer who worked on Mr. Combs’s most recent album, accuses Mr. Combs of groping him and forcing him to solicit prostitutes; he also alleges that Mr. Combs threatened him with violence.In their response, lawyers for Mr. Combs wrote that Mr. Jones’s claims lack basic details, including where and when the alleged groping occurred, along with how, exactly, Mr. Combs pressured him into hiring prostitutes.“Such vague allegations fall well short of federal pleading standards,” wrote one of the lawyers, Erica A. Wolff, who argued that the real purpose of the lawsuit is to “generate media hype and exploit it to extract a settlement.”One threat of violence that the lawsuit alleges was that Mr. Combs once threatened to “eat Mr. Jones’s face,” but the exact context for the comment was unclear in Mr. Jones’s suit, a 98-page document that details a litany of allegations from his time as a part of Mr. Combs’s entourage.Mr. Jones’s lawyer, Tyrone A. Blackburn, called the filing a “desperate Hail Mary attempt.”“Nothing in this complaint is far-fetched,” he said. “Nothing in this complaint is too vague.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      My Working Relationship With Diddy in the Music Industry

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      A thing happened between Sean Combs and me. Unlike what he has been accused of over the last eight months, what occurred between us was not sexual. It was professional — demonstrative of the way dynamic and domineering men moved in our heyday. Combs and I worked together a lot. Competed, in our way. So often I thought I came out on top. I was mistaken. I had reason to fear for my life. What happened was insidious. It broke my brain. I forgot the worst of it for 27 years.It was July 1997. In the fading smoke of the murders of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., I was named editor in chief of a music magazine called Vibe. Started by Quincy Jones and Time Inc. in 1992, the magazine chronicled Black music and culture with rigor and beauty, 10 issues a year, for an audience that was relentlessly underserved. When I took over, we thought hip-hop might have died with our heroes, and we were determined not only to keep it alive but also to give it the cultural credit it was due.Hip-hop was both in mourning and in marketing meetings. Combs, Biggie’s creative partner and label boss, was the personification of this dichotomy. His Bad Boy Records was having a $100 million year — much due to the work of Biggie and Mase, as well as Combs’s own debut album, “No Way Out,” which was anchored by the blockbuster Biggie tribute “I’ll Be Missing You” featuring Faith Evans. Other singles, “It’s All About the Benjamins” and “Been Around the World,” functioned as a score for hip-hop’s megawatt moment — its commercial evolution and international expansion. (“No Way Out” would go on to sell over seven million copies.) So I wanted Combs on the cover of Vibe’s December 1997/January 1998 double issue. And I wanted him to wear white feathered wings.Faith Evans and Sean Combs filming the 1997 video for “I’ll Be Missing You,” in memory of the Notorious B.I.G., Evans’s husband. Mychal Watts/Associated PressMy point of reference was the poster for “Heaven Can Wait,” a 1978 film starring Warren Beatty. The movie is about a quarterback who dies before his time and is reincarnated as an idiosyncratic and callous billionaire. Vibe’s working cover line for Sacha Jenkins’s article was “The Good, the Bad and the Puffy.” Not so elegant, but it would work if the fashion director Emil Wilbekin and I got Combs (then known as Puffy, or Puff Daddy) to put on the angel wings. And if we also got a shot that looked even slightly mischievous, we could do a split run of the cover — one with heavenly signifiers and another with hellish ones. Possible cover line: “Bad Boy, Bad Boy, Whatcha Gonna Do?”The photo shoot took place in Manhattan in September 1997. I had probably said hello to Combs at an event, but the shoot was the first time I was around him for an extended period. Either it was a crowded set or I just felt claustrophobic. I wore yoga pants and an oversize T-shirt. I remember wanting to minimize my bust more than my bra was already doing. I remember cajoling. And I remember knowing that as a Black woman, I was in a no-win situation: to fail was to live up to my male bosses’ low expectations, and to succeed was to invite their resentment. That day, Combs was begrudgingly compliant. We finally got him to shrug on the white feathered wings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Howard University Votes to Revoke Sean Combs’s Honorary Degree

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      In a unanimous decision, the university’s board of trustees also moved to disband a scholarship in Mr. Combs’s name amid investigations into abuse allegations.Howard University announced on Friday that it would revoke an honorary degree that was awarded to the hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2014. The decision comes in the wake of Mr. Combs’s admission that he physically abused a former girlfriend, in addition to a slew of other allegations of abuse that have surfaced in recent months.At the conclusion of a meeting of the Howard University board of trustees, the body voted unanimously “to accept the return by Mr. Sean Combs of the honorary degree,” according to a statement released by the university. Howard also said that it would revoke all honors and privileges associated with the degree.Mr. Combs, 54, also known as “Puff” and “Diddy,” attended the university from 1987 to 1989 but left before graduating. In 2016, he pledged $1 million to establish the Sean Combs Scholarship Fund, which went to students in need of financial aid.Video footage surfaced last month of Mr. Combs striking, kicking and dragging his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, known professionally as Cassie, in 2016.“Mr. Combs’s behavior as captured in a recently released video is so fundamentally incompatible with Howard University’s core values and beliefs that he is deemed no longer worthy to hold the institution’s highest honor,” the statement said.Howard University did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment.In November 2023, Ms. Ventura filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of rape and physical abuse; they reached a settlement the next day. Then, in May, CNN published surveillance footage it had acquired from a Los Angeles hotel that showed Mr. Combs attacking Ms. Ventura near the building’s elevators.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs Sells Stake in Revolt, the Media Company He Founded

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      After a wave of lawsuits accusing Mr. Combs of sexual assault, the two are “completely separated and dissociated from each other,” the company’s chief executive said.Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been facing mounting legal scrutiny over allegations of sexual and physical abuse, has sold his majority stake in Revolt, the media company that he founded, the organization announced Tuesday.The largest shareholder group at Revolt, a private company, is now made up of employees, its chief executive, Detavio Samuels, said in an interview ahead of the announcement.Now known best for popular video podcasts such as “Drink Champs,” “The Jason Lee Show” and “Caresha Please,” Revolt was started by Mr. Combs more than a decade ago as a music industry-focused cable channel meant to boost Black representation on television.In January, after a wave of lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs, he agreed to start the process of separation from Revolt, Mr. Samuels said.Mr. Combs’s business empire has shrunk significantly since November, when Casandra Ventura — his former girlfriend, who performs music as Cassie — filed a lawsuit accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled in a day, but five more followed from women who accused Mr. Combs of sexual assault.Mr. Combs, 54, who is also known as Puff and Diddy, said last year that the lawsuits contained “sickening allegations” from “individuals looking for a quick payday.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cassie After Sean Combs Assault Footage: ‘Open Your Heart to Believing Victims’

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      The singer, who sued the hip-hop mogul over allegations of rape and abuse, posted a statement after 2016 video emerged last week showing him assaulting her in a hotel.Cassie, the singer who accused Sean Combs of years of physical and sexual abuse in a lawsuit that she settled, on Thursday addressed footage of the music mogul assaulting her that emerged last week, saying in an Instagram post that domestic violence had broken her down to “someone I never thought I would become.”“Thank you to everyone that has taken the time to take this matter seriously,” the singer, whose full name is Casandra Ventura, wrote in the post. “My only ask is that EVERYONE open your heart to believing victims the first time. It takes a lot of heart to tell the truth out of a situation that you were powerless in.”It is the first time that Ms. Ventura has spoken publicly about her accusations against Mr. Combs, whom she dated for about a decade, since her lawsuit was filed last November and settled in one day. Since then, as Mr. Combs has faced a cascade of legal troubles, Ms. Ventura has spoken about her claims only through her lawyer, who released a statement calling the footage of the assault “gut-wrenching” when it was published by CNN last week.In the footage from 2016, which appeared to come from security cameras, Ms. Ventura is seen waiting for an elevator in a hotel when Mr. Combs, wearing a towel, grabs the back of her sweatshirt and throws her to the ground, kicking her twice before dragging her down the hallway away from the elevators. The video corroborates some of the details from Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit, which recalls Mr. Combs assaulting her at an InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles in 2016 as she tried to leave.Although his lawyer denied the allegations in the lawsuit at the time, Mr. Combs released an apology video following the release of the footage, saying that he took “full responsibility” for his actions and that he had since been to therapy and rehab.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More