The sulfurous P. Diddy affair in five burning questions

American music superstar, rapper-producer P. Diddy is the central character in a sprawling affair that fascinates the whole world. At 54 years old, Sean John Combs – his real name – has long been presented as a symbol of success for the African-American community. Discoverer of stars like Notorious BIG, Mary J. Blige and Usher in the early 1990s before going solo, the boss of Bad Boy Records diversified his activities into fashion and spirits to officially become a billionaire in 2022.

Everything changes in the winter of 2023 when his ex-partner, the singer Cassie, files a complaint for rape and physical violence over ten years, supporting testimony in the press. She will withdraw it a few weeks later following a financial agreement. But Pandora’s box has opened. Around ten women will file a complaint in turn, while in May, the CNN channel reveals a video in which Diddy attacks Cassie in the corridors of a hotel. Behind the scenes, justice is investigating. And on September 16, the police arrested him in a New York hotel…

What exactly is he accused of?

Faced with the proliferation of complaints against Diddy, the FBI carried out a spectacular search of his properties in Los Angeles and Miami last spring. On site, investigators recovered hard drives containing evidence of a complex system aimed at forcing victims into sexual relations involving the star, relatives and sex workers, with compromising videos reducing them to silence. This is why from May 5, 2025, he will be tried for sex trafficking and extortion in a Manhattan court. But that’s not all.

In parallel with this criminal trial, P. Diddy is also being sued in civil court for sexual assault by more than 120 victims, including 25 minors at the time of the events. They are represented by Tony Buzbee, a lawyer famous for having obtained significant damages in high-profile cases. It must be said that last December, Diddy negotiated the dropping of Cassie’s complaint in exchange for a sum of money, the amount of which was never revealed.

Who are the alleged victims?

Around ten women filed complaints against Diddy in Cassie’s wake. Among them is Joi Dickerson-Neal, a former psychology student at Syracuse University who accuses the rapper of drugging and raping her in 1991. Liza Gardner, a fan who was 16 in 1990, when she was allegedly raped by the rapper in a suite in New York. Former model Crystal McKinney who says she was forced into oral sex in a recording studio in 2003 at the age of 22. Or Adria English, a dancer who says she was forced into sex at a party in the Hamptons in 2004.

Diddy’s most famous accuser is singer Dawn Richards. Member of the group Danita Kane, produced by the rapper, she will then be part of the trio Dirty Money with him. In her complaint filed in September, she says she was a victim of rape and violence and denounces her ex-mentor’s “culture of fear” towards women. But Diddy is also accused by two men. Derrick Lee Cardello denounces a rape in Detroit in 1997. Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones claims that the star tried to force him to have sex with other men during the recording of The Love Album between 2022 and 2023… promising him a Grammy in exchange.

Why does the justice system refuse to release him?

After his arrest, Diddy made two requests for bail. In one of them, his lawyers offered to pay $50 million and promised that their client would not come into contact with any woman during the proceedings. They also pointed out that the rapper in prison, his two youngest children aged 7 found themselves without a parent since their mother, the ex-model Kim Porter, died from pneumonia in 2019.

Despite all these elements, prosecutor Emily Johnson decided that Diddy would remain behind bars in the sinister Brooklyn federal penitentiary until his trial next May. Does she fear that the defendant will try to flee the United States? Or to get in touch with the complainants and/or others involved in the case? No less than 96 electronic devices were seized from his home. And they haven’t yet revealed all their secrets…

Are other stars involved?

This is one of the points that makes the headlines in the celebrity press… and on social networks. During his career, Diddy organized hundreds of spectacular parties bringing together all the elite of showbiz. Stars of music, but also of cinema and politics, invited to celebrate dressed in white in sumptuous villas, from the Hamptons to Saint-Tropez. A quick Google search finds him toasting with Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Leonardo DiCaprio, his ex-Jennifer Lopez and even Donald and Melania Trump. Which does not make them accomplices to his misdeeds.

Because if sex was not absent from Diddy’s “traditional” parties, the latter should not be confused with the nebulous “freak off” evenings, which are even more private and elaborate. The material seized by the FBI made it possible to learn more about these orgies, most often organized in hotels. For several days non-stop, the participants had sex with sex workers under the influence of substances such as Ecstasy, GHB or even ketamine. All filmed by the owner. Are there any stars in the images? Mystery for the moment.

What is he really risking?

If convicted of sex trafficking, Diddy faces a minimum of 15 years in prison. In 2019, another music star, singer R. Kelly, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors. Where his colleague plays even bigger is with the charge of extortion since it could earn him life imprisonment. What about the complaints of rape and sexual assault that are piling up? Unlike the Cassie case, it is not excluded that some will go to trial.

To make his case, Diddy hired the crème de la crème of the New York bar. Among his lawyers are Marc Agnifilo, alongside Dominique Strauss-Kahn when the former director general of the IMF was indicted in the Nafissatou Diallo affair in 2011. After the rapper-producer’s arrest, he implicitly accused the courts of racism against a self-made African-American man. A perilous mode of defense in the face of the multiplicity of accusations against his new client?