In early November, Sean Combs blew out candles around a bright red cake to mark turning 54 at a party in London that doubled as a celebration of his new album, “The Love Album: Off the Grid.”
Months later, the party is over. Since mid-November, Combs has been named in lawsuits alleging physical violence, rape, forced druggings and sexual harassment from seven women and a man. In March, his houses in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by Department of Homeland Security officers as part of a sex-trafficking investigation. Combs denied the claims and has since filed motions to dismiss in at least two of the cases.
He reached a settlement with former girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura a day after she filed her lawsuit in November. Then, in May, video footage from 2016 surfaced of Combs attacking Ventura, who had also been an artist on his label, Bad Boy Entertainment.
Combs issued a public apology on Instagram in a video in which he sits under a thatched roof. “I make no excuses,” he said. “My behavior on that video is inexcusable.”
The series of events has hastened a fall for a music mogul who helped make hip-hop more palatable to the mainstream. More than simply an artist, Combs excelled at influencing the art of music as a promoter and producer. He did this by mixing familiar pop sounds like the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” with rap, helping take hip-hop to a more commercial level than ever and minting major stars such as the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige.
Even as Combs built a formidable business, he was consistently dogged by both legal battles and allegations of wrongdoing and even violence. For years, that didn’t appear to interfere with his success. Now that air of invincibility is gone.
The latest allegations show how an imperious reputation can abruptly turn. They call into question the future of his commercial ventures and threaten his legacy as a symbol of hip-hop’s ascension from popular subculture to global economic force.
Over more than three decades, Combs delivered not just sounds but drinks, fragrances and clothes that flexed the extent to which a musical entrepreneur could lean on their celebrity to build a commercial empire.
He threw famous “White Parties” in the Hamptons and other elite enclaves, where guest lists included everyone from Jay-Z and Paris Hilton to writer Salman Rushdie and future President Donald Trump. Once, during an election year, Combs displayed an original copy of the Declaration of Independence borrowed from Norman Lear.
In many ways, Combs’s business strategy—parlaying his personal image into massive money-making deals—set a model for future music stars.
But even before the latest allegations, Combs’s star was waning. Prior to Ventura’s suit, Combs had started a legal battle with liquor giant Diageo. Macy’s stores had begun phasing out his clothing line, Sean John.
Then, in November, Ventura’s allegations were made public and Diddy’s reputation took its biggest hit yet. A New York charter school Combs helped create broke ties with him, and he stepped aside from his role at Revolt, a television network he co-founded in the vision of BET and MTV, later selling his stake altogether. In January, Diageo and Combs settled a legal dispute over the tequila brand in which he had an ownership stake, ending a near 20-year relationship that featured ubiquitous marketing of the star enjoying the high life and boosting the company’s Cîroc vodka.
The artist known for hits like “I’ll Be Missing You” and “Bad Boy for Life” had fallen from his self-anointed godlike status.
An attorney for Combs, Jonathan Davis, declined to discuss the lawsuits. He said they were aware authorities were conducting an investigation and that they have “confidence any important issues will be addressed in the proper forum where the rules distinguish facts from fiction.”
From the beginning, Combs turned his tough-guy personality and stubborn persistence into a modus operandi. An account of how he was fired by his mentor at Uptown Records in the early 1990s became part of his origin story as a brash, bold executive who saw no limits.
Later, over several seasons of the MTV reality series “Making the Band,” Combs’s demanding personality was fodder for entertainment as he judged young, aspiring pop and R&B artists competing to be part of a new group that could win a contract from Bad Boy.
“Diddy followed the ‘in order to be successful you have to be an asshole’ school of thought,” said Andy Tavel, a longtime hip-hop lawyer who handled the Notorious B.I.G.’s renegotiations with Combs in the 1990s.
His first hit solo album, 1997’s “No Way Out,” came after the Notorious B.I.G., Bad Boy’s most important artist, died. But sales of future albums slumped as time wore on. As a successful producer, Combs prominently appeared in his artists’ songs and music videos. His starry cameos elevated lesser-known artists, but also led to criticisms that he was prioritizing himself and his Bad Boy brand over the work of his artists.
Kirk Burrowes, a former president and general manager at Bad Boy, said Combs was skilled at completely rebranding new artists to help them succeed.
“He’s been able to bring not only the right look, the right ‘je ne sais quoi,’ but he’s been able to manufacture, conjure, interpolate, sample, procure some of the best music for the artists, even though he’s not a musician,” Burrowes said.
In 1999, Combs was arrested for allegedly assaulting music executive Steve Stoute in his office, according to press reports at the time. Combs was allegedly incensed over footage that depicted him being hung on a cross in another artist’s music video. He and two other men allegedly beat Stoute with their fists, a telephone and a chair. Combs was charged for the assault. After Combs publicly apologized, Stoute asked for the charges to be dropped; Combs pleaded guilty to a harassment charge and was sentenced to an anger-management class. The two eventually buried the hatchet.
In 2003, Burrowes alleged in a lawsuit that Combs forced him into giving up a 25% share in Bad Boy by showing up to his office with his lawyer and a baseball bat. Combs denied the accusation, filing a motion to dismiss that called the claim “outlandish” and said lawsuits such as these were used to coerce a celebrity defendant into a settlement. A judge dismissed Burrowes’s lawsuit in part because it exceeded the statute of limitations.
During production for “Making the Band,” people familiar with the production say, Combs regularly showed up to shoots several hours late and made demands that at times added up to six-figure price increases, including private jet service.
Combs’s demands ultimately extended to the corporate world. Fashion and luxury executives were drawn to the way he mixed a sense of danger with the trappings of high society.
His White Parties became a feature of the summer social calendar, bringing hip-hop culture to celebrity circles and flipping the script on society: Instead of rich white people hosting black-tie parties, attendees had to abide by a strict dress code of wearing only white.
His fashion line, Sean John, a nod to his legal name, made a splashy runway debut at New York Fashion Week in 2000. Models walked in furry coats, sparkling pants and colorful tracksuits. Within a few years, the Council of Fashion Designers of America had named him menswear designer of the year and by 2006, Sean John’s annual U.S. sales grew to more than $400 million.
When Combs partnered with Estée Lauder for his own Sean John cologne, an Estée Lauder executive visited his house in Beverly Hills in 2005, according to people familiar with the matter, and together, they sorted through all the high-end beauty products in his bathroom for inspiration. He wanted a high-end product with prestige—not something that would license his name for a quick dollar.
The cologne, Unforgivable, launched the next year, marketed with ads showing Combs in bed with two women.
Then-CEO William Lauder told investors that Unforgivable became the No. 1 seller after its release and that sales doubled the company’s expectations. Combs was making about $3 million a year in royalties, according to a person familiar with the business. Women’s Wear Daily declared Combs and Lauder “Beauty’s New Couple.”
But the relationship between the Lauders and Combs would soon sour. Between the release of Combs’s first scent and his second men’s fragrance, I Am King, in 2008, executives noticed a change. He became more volatile, making what executives saw as unreasonable demands, including that the company pay for everything—clothes, drinks, dinners and parties, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company leased a yacht in Saint Tropez for about $500,000 to film the advertising campaign around I Am King. It showed a tuxedo-clad Combs riding a jet ski and traipsing through luxury parties flanked by women.
“You are what you say you are,” he declared in one ad. “I am King.”
Estée Lauder executives became frustrated when the yacht became what they saw as a vacation home of sorts for Combs, with visitors including young women and hangers-on.
Estée Lauder distribution of Sean John fragrances ended in 2012.
In 2007, Combs struck one of his highest-profile business deals yet, becoming the face of Diageo’s Cîroc vodka, a little-known vodka distilled with grapes rather than grain. The bad-boy partying life was Combs’s chief marketing tool, and he proved again to have a golden touch. Cîroc sales increased from 65,000 cases before Combs’s arrival to a peak of 2.1 million cases in 2014, according to S&D Insights. Sales slowly declined to 1.6 million cases in 2022.
Diageo doubled down on Combs, buying a tequila brand, DeLeón, in 2013. Rather than being only the face of the drink, Combs would be a 50-50 owner.
The artist’s vision for DeLeón never came to fruition. He filed a lawsuit against Diageo last year, claiming that the spirits giant produced “underwhelming and disproportionately low quantities” of DeLeón. Combs accused the company of racism in its corporate decision-making and detailed criticisms from a “slapdash design” to a label that easily bubbled, making the bottle look cheap.
He urged the company to market DeLeón and Cîroc to the broader public, rather than framing them as “Black brands or brands that do well in certain accounts or ZIP codes,” according to his lawsuit.
“If Diageo is truly committed to diversity, you can never treat another person of color this way again,” Combs told the company, according to his lawsuit.
Diageo responded in court with a different account of the fractured relationship. The company said from the beginning, Combs had refused to put more than $1,000 of his own money into the 50-50 deal, while Diageo made a more than $100 million investment.
The company denied the problems with the new packaging and said sales had risen after the new design.
In the financial terms of the deal, Combs believed his celebrity equity was enough for his share, according to the company. Diageo said Combs had made pricey demands to continue marketing DeLeón, blowing through a $15 million ad and promotion budget faster than intended, according to the company’s legal filings.
In May 2021, Diageo committed publicly to donate $100 million for pandemic recovery in the hospitality sector and underprivileged communities. Behind the scenes, Combs demanded that Diageo pay him $100 million and threatened to “reach out to every news outlet” to “burn the house down” by making public accusations of racism if Diageo refused to write the check, according to Diageo’s legal filings.
“Mr. Combs has focused on one thing only: his own self enrichment,” the company said in a lawsuit.
Diageo ended its Cîroc marketing relationship with Combs in June 2023 while the litigation continued.
Six months later, after several people came forward in court with accusations of sexual assault and violence against Combs, Diageo paid him $200 million to buy his 50% share of DeLeón. Their business relationship was over.
Last year, Combs released his first record in 13 years—“The Love Album.”
“This is not a hustle to me,” Combs told hosts of “The Breakfast Club” radio show in September. “This is an art form. This is a love. This is a God superpower.”
The star seemed to be turning over a new leaf. He started giving back song-publishing rights to former Bad Boy artists like Mase, Faith Evans and the estate of the Notorious B.I.G. He donated millions of dollars to historically Black colleges and universities, positioning himself as a benevolent elder in the music industry.
Now the new allegations are overwhelming his efforts to rebrand himself.
“I believe any artist who has that much influence should be using it for the greater good,” said Bryan Breeding, a singer in the R&B group B5, which had a deal with Bad Boy in the early 2000s. “You have influence over an entire culture. That comes with responsibility.”
In his public video apology in May after the footage of Combs and Ventura surfaced, Combs appeared contrite. “It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life. Sometimes you gotta do that,” he said, adding that he was going to therapy, rehab and asking God for grace and mercy. “I’m committed to be a better man each and every day. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m truly sorry.”Sabela Ojea, Joe Flint and Alicia Caldwell contributed reporting.
