Last September, on the release of an anticipated comeback album, the hip-hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs, formerly known as P Diddy and Puff Daddy, spoke about how he had renamed himself Love, and his new album would be titled, The Love Album: Off the Grid.
Combs told GQ he’d made the album because he didn’t know where the love was at. “I didn’t know how to turn it back on,” Combs said. “And then, one day God came to me – and God’s a woman. So She was like, ‘It’s time, baby.’”
If God is exerting influence on Combs’s life, however, then She is probably angry and it has nothing to do with his music, if multiple civil claims of sex trafficking and sexual abuse and federal agents raiding his homes in Los Angeles and Miami are any indication of divine intervention.Far from riding a comeback wave on the back of his Love album, Combs’s reputation is under threat more than ever before. Instead of going down in the annals of hip-hop fame, Combs’s name is now mentioned in the US media alongside fallen stars and moguls like R Kelly and Harvey Weinstein.
The raid on Combs’s homes on Monday were reportedly authorized by a search warrant out of New York’s southern district as part of an “ongoing investigation” into sex-trafficking allegations. At least three people at Combs’s home in Los Angeles appeared to be cuffed by agents, including briefly Combs’s sons, 30-year-old Justin and 25-year-old King. In Miami, four people in Combs’s entourage were similarly restrained at his Miami Beach mansion.
Another Combs associate, described as Diddy’s “mule” in a civil lawsuit against the music producer, was arrested on drug charges at the OpaLocka airport, north of the city, where Combs’s black Gulfstream jet had touched down.
The rap mogul was seen chatting with agents before the plane flew on to Antigua. But Combs did not join the family-and-friends Caribbean vacation trip, and his whereabouts are unknown. The 54-year-old, three-time Grammy winner was not arrested, nor has he been charged with any offenses. He has previously strenuously denied all allegations.
Aaron Dyer, an attorney for Combs, protested that there was “no excuse for the excessive show of force and hostility exhibited by authorities or the way his children and employees were treated”.
Dyer called the raid a “gross overuse of military-level force”, an “unprecedented ambush”, and “nothing more than a witch-hunt based on meritless accusations”.
But the shocking raids came a month after a lawsuit was filed in New York by the music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones that accuses Combs of being the leader of a criminal enterprise that could qualify as a “widespread and dangerous criminal sex trafficking organization”.
Jones, who worked on the Love album, claims that he was forced to “solicit sex workers and perform sex acts to the pleasure of Mr Combs”.
Jones’s lawsuit alleges that bold-face names added “legitimacy” to Combs’ alleged sex-trafficking parties because of his “access to celebrities such as famous athletes, political figures, artists, musicians, and international dignitaries like British Royal, Prince Harry”. Prince Harry is not accused of any wrongdoing.The raids punctuate a cascade of allegations leveled at Combs in recent months.
In November, Combs’s former partner, Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, filed a $30m lawsuit in New York accusing him of urging her to have sex with male sex workers while he filmed and that he’d beaten and raped her in 2018.
Combs denied Ventura’s allegations, and settled the lawsuit a day later for an undisclosed amount of money. His former attorney Ben Brafman said Combs “vehemently denies” the allegations.
But other women came forward. Joie Dickerson-Neal subsequently accused Combs of drugging and sexually assaulting her, and again recording the event, while she was a college student in the early 90s when Combs was at Uptown Records, the label that launched Mary J Blige and Jodeci.
In a third lawsuit, an anonymous woman accused Combs and two co-defendants of raping her in the early 1990s after he founded Bad Boy Records, the label that became synonymous with the success of the Notorious BIG, Usher, Faith Evans and 112.
Then a fourth suit claimed Combs drugged and raped an unnamed plaintiff in 2003, when she was 17, at a time when Combs had become established as the de facto ambassador of hip-hop bling via the clothing brand Sean John, a jewelry and men’s fragrance Unforgivable, and later moves into the spirits business with Cîroc vodka and DeLeón tequila.
Source: .theguardian
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