It seemed so surreal. Sean Combs’s arrest on September 16 on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the hip-hop impresario, who as recently as a year ago was feted as an industry visionary before a sudden series of sexual assault accusations. Prosecutors said in an indictment that, since 2008, Combs aka Diddy has been the puppet master of a colossal criminal outfit that included employees and has engaged in various sordid antics such as kidnapping and threats of violence to intimidate and silence victims, forced labor, arson, and bribery. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The charges against Combs are the music industry’s most significant, high-profile criminal prosecution on sexual misconduct charges since R&B star R. Kelly was sentenced in 2022 and 2023 to more than 30 years in prison for child sex crimes, sex trafficking, and racketeering. As they do Combs, credible allegations of abuse dogged R. Kelly for decades.
In a riveting press conference after he unsealed the 14-page indictment, US Attorney Damien Williams stated that Combs “abused, threatened, and coerced victims to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct.” Combs, he said, “led and participated in a racketeering conspiracy that used the business empire he controlled to carry out criminal activity.” He currently resides in a jail cell in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where a judge has ordered him to remain until his trial.
His lavish Labor Day “White Party,” whether held in the Hamptons, St. Tropez, or Los Angeles, was a major event that featured numerous A-list celebrities. It was like a rite of passage where everyone in attendance wore various shades of white. Combs also indulged in treating himself to expensive birthday parties in the company of megastars and high-profile businesspeople. Never one to shun self-promotion, the hip-hop mogul told The Independent in 2001 that, “I am the Great Gatsby!” Well, just as the good times of Gatsby’s parties eventually concluded, so has the chronic level of massive public admiration and, in some cases, worship for Combs.
The typical narrative is that women who accuse men of sexual assault are often dishonest fortune hunters looking for a quick payday. Oftentimes, the accusers’ reputations are savaged, while the powerful accused are often defended. Interestingly, this has not been the reality for Combs.
The reasons are varied. One is probably the advent of the #MeTwo movement that activist Tamara Burke established in 2017 to illuminate the sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and rape culture that had been part of the public discourse for a few years. Additionally, many people were initially hard-pressed to believe that men such as “America’s Dad” Bill Cosby, who spent decades drugging and sexually assaulting women, and “Mr. Feminist” Joss Whedon, who sexually harassed and slept with numerus women, were capable of engaging in such menacing and sadistic behavior. On the contrary, many people witnessed the horrendous CNN video of Combs violently assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura (Sean Combs attacks Cassie Ventura) in 2016. Details of the incident were virtually verbatim to those in the civil lawsuit she filed against Combs in November 2023, accusing him of rape and abuse.
According to the government, Combs used force, threats, and coercion to manipulate women into what he called “freak offs,” that is, “highly orchestrated performances of sexual activity” in hotels and other locations fueled by drugs and lasting for days. At these events, the government says, women were plied with drugs to keep them “obedient” and coerced to participate in sex with male prostitutes, some of whom crossed state lines. Prosecutors said Combs would watch these events, sometimes while masturbating and recording video. According to the government, Combs used those recordings as collateral to maintain a culture of silence and obedience. He would also dictate the women’s appearance, monitor their medical information, and supply them with drugs.
In all probability, it’s the salacious details in the indictment — such as the more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant found during raids at his homes in Miami and Los Angeles — that have resulted in Combs’s would-be supporters remaining silent. Such silence likely exists due to the reality that, as is often the case with those accused of sexual misconduct, many are well aware of Combs’s alleged crimes — or participated in them.
Music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones sued Combs earlier this year, claiming that he was “the victim of constant unsolicited and unauthorized groping and touching” by Combs and had been “subjected to unwanted advances by associates of Diddy at his direction and was forced to engage in relations with sex workers [Combs] hired.” Wow!
To be sure, Sean Combs has his defenders. All one has to do is visit Instagram and Tik Tok, among other social media platforms, that show some people using the “they want to bring a powerful Black man down” argument to witness such support. Let’s just cut to the chase. Yes, we know that American Black men have had a long and tortured history of being the frequent victims, past and present, of a vehemently hostile and racially biased criminal justice system that is unrelenting in its attitude and has routinely scapegoated and targeted them and, increasingly, Latino men. That piece of undeniable truth aside, there is little if any evidence to indicate that Combs is being falsely targeted. Let’s get that out of the way!
If anything, he has spent decades protected from his criminal behavior by his vast wealth and meticulously crafted reputation as a kind of Willy Wonka. If the allegations are true, then indeed he must be prosecuted. The same goes for anyone who aided and abetted him in such wicked, sadistic, and sinister shenanigans.
Elwood Watson Ph.D. is a professor of History, Black Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at East Tennessee State University. He is a cultural critic, syndicated columnist and author of the book, Keepin’ It Real: Essays on Race in Contemporary America. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/K/bo40060337.html (University of Chicago Press