Sean “Diddy” Combs spent decades in the music industry building up his legacy through his Bad Boy empire and various side hustles to become one of the hip-hop artists on Forbes list of billionaires in 2022. He has five No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100 and 15 hits in the top 10 — and that doesn’t even include his work producing hits for others.
The thing about legacies is that they’re fragile — and something that took decades to be put together brick by brick can be seemingly dismantled overnight.
Just two months after being honored with the Global Icon Award at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards, the hip-hop world was turned on its head when Combs’ ex Cassie filed a bombshell lawsuit Nov. 16 accusing the music industry mogul of years of sexual misconduct and abuse during their time together.
The lawsuit was settled in less than 24 hours, but the floodgates had opened. The artist was peppered with a litany of sexual misconduct-related lawsuits to close out 2023, and they continued into 2024.
Combs denied the allegations against him in December. “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” he wrote. “Sickening allegations 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.”
Civil suits continued to stack, and the heat was ratcheted up several levels when Homeland Security stepped in on March 25 to raid the music mogul’s homes in Los Angeles and Miami, with the Bad Boy boss being linked to a sex trafficking investigation, according to CNN.
Soon after, the musician’s lawyer blasted the raid on his homes as a “gross overuse of military-level force” and a “witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.”
Below is a timeline of the allegations made against Diddy and the ensuing fallout.
The post “A Timeline of Diddy’s Sexual Misconduct Allegations” by Michael Saponara was published on 09/17/2024 by www.billboard.com