Diddy has had enough. IN-ALL-CAPS ENOUGH.
What started with Cassie’s allegations of sex trafficking and abuse, and then the next day was patched up with a settlement, has mushroomed into seemingly weekly allegations of alleged malfeasance done by Sean “Diddy” Combs. And now, after weeks of fuming in silence, he wants to put a stop to it.
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” the emphatic, 72-word statement on X (formerly Twitter) began in capital letters.
“FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS, I HAVE SAT SILENTLY AND WATCHED PEOPLE TRY TO ASSASSINATE MY CHARACTER, DESTROY MY REPUTATION AND MY LEGACY.
“SICKENING ACCUSATIONS HAVE BEEN MADE AGAINST ME BY INDIVIDUALS LOOKING FOR A QUICK PAYDAY.
“LET ME BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR: I DID NOT DO ANY OF THE AWFUL THINGS BEING ALLEGED. I WILL FIGHT FOR MY NAME, MY FAMILY AND FOR THE TRUTH.
“SEAN DIDDY COMBS.”
The latest accusation came in a Jane Doe lawsuit alleging that Diddy, former Bad Boy president Harve Pierre, and a third unidentified man “gang raped” a 17-year-old girl inside Diddy’s Manhattan recording studio in 2003, when Diddy was 34.
Before that, one woman, a Syracuse University student at the time, claimed Diddy drugged and assaulted her while she attended the school in 1991. She claims he also recorded it and showed the footage to multiple people.
Another woman followed with a claim that Diddy and R&B singer Aaron Hall took advantage of her at Hall’s apartment. She said Diddy allegedly visited her home days later, assaulted and choked her until she passed out.
The singer Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura) caused the initial shock waves when she accused Combs in a lawsuit filed Nov. 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She accused Diddy of sexual assault, sex trafficking. physical beatings and rape. The next day, they settled out of court.
His lawyer, Ben Brafman, seemed to anticipate that others would emerge and had hoped to head off further claims with a preemptive denial.
“Just so we’re clear, a decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Brafman said in a Nov. 17 statement. “Mr. Combs’ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”
It is worth noting that the same lawyer who filed Cassie’s lawsuit, Douglas H. Wigdor, is filing the lawsuit on behalf of Jane Doe.
Since the first lawsuit, however, it has been a busy three weeks for the rap mogul and producer. He was torched on social media for settling with Cassie, perhaps most notably by rival rapper 50 Cent. Then his former bodyguard, Roger Bonds, claimed he not only stopped the Bad Boy founder from abusing Cassie, but others, too.
Bonds posted on Instagram that working with Diddy made him sick, and that he was already sick with diabetes. Bonds said he went public with his recollections partly because he has four daughters.
“It comes a time when you in a situation that may seem like a good situation, but if you not waking up happy, or if you disgruntled, or you really don’t want to be around that person, you find every excuse to get out of there, and I got diabetes,” Bonds posted on IG on Nov. 29. “So, my excuse was, ‘I can’t be with you every day … I’m losing weight’… but in reality, it was that I was sick! I was sick of you, I was sick of everything that was going on around you, I was sick of having to cover up everything that you did. I was sick.”
