It was December of 2020, and most of the world was still at a standstill. Mortgages, car loans, and credit card bills were in deferment while people waited anxiously for their second economic stimulus check to hit their accounts any day. It was also when I officially knew that Sean “Puffy,” “P. Diddy,” “Puff Daddy,” “Diddy,” “Love,” Combs was not just exploitative but completely out of touch with civilized society and couldn’t possibly care if people thought he was an asshole or not.
Do not get me wrong, there is absolutely something freeing about not caring what people think, but there is something dangerous in it, too, especially mixed with endless resources that provide you access to live out your darkest fantasies. Sometimes caring what people think just enough keeps us human enough. At that moment, as if I needed another for confirmation, I knew Diddy did not care about being a decent human. While people were holding on to the last bit of sanity they had after losing jobs, friends, family, money and housing, Diddy was on the internet gifting his already very rich mother—the same mother who received more royalties from Bad Boy artists than the artists did—a large million dollar check, in an ostentatious and cruel display for the whole grieving world to see.
This is the full court documents Cassie has against Diddy https://t.co/PhdsyeuMip
— Rose TheArtist (@rosethaaartist) November 17, 2023
Sean Combs has been in the music industry longer than his current concubine Caresha has been alive, with his mogul status cemented, well over a decade ago. A perpetual teenager in his now mid-50s, Combs’ brand is a big boss who refuses to grow up, and it seems that all Act Bad that he was pursuing has finally caught up to him. Even the name of his label alludes to a static immaturity. Comb’s empire began when he produced for up-and-coming artists Mary J. Blige and Jodeci for Uptown Records. Shortly after being fired, he started Bad Boy, with Notorious B.I.G. as his biggest artist. One of the originators of sampling, something like a less creative Kanye West, Combs quickly realized that an easy way to make hit music was to use music that was already a hit. This week, Cassie Ventura, his ex-sex slave, whom he paraded around as his main girlfriend for over 11 years, filed a 35-page suit against him, alleging years of physical and sexual abuse (sex trafficking), not to mention sexual harassment, as he was her former employer. The suit details years of violent abuse and corroboration by Combs’ business associates, employees, as well as Sony Entertainment in covering it up. While so many people on social media are reacting to the news, people are shocked by the horrific details, but no one is incredulous about his capability to carry out ongoing heinousness for so long while remaining relatively unscathed.
Earlier this year, Combs, who has an estimated net worth of about $1 billion (which makes him gifting his mother a million dollars even more laughable because that’s equivalent of someone making $100,000 a year gifting their mother $100 and then making a big deal about it), finally decided to share royalties with his former Bad Boy artists, some 30 years after the hits were made. This came as a shock because Diddy has been notorious, no pun intended, for cheating his artists out of publishing rights and signing them to bad deals. In his continued philanthropic pursuits, in August, Combs donated $1 million each to the HBCUs Howard, his alma mater and Jackson State University, where Deon Sanders formerly coached.
Wow, he was really on a roll this year, or should I say role, because it just feels like bad acting from someone who lives to act bad. The names Rockefeller, Carnegie, Peabody, Mellon, Getty and Buffet are often attached to awards, colleges, museums and countless other philanthropic causes; these are the names of men who were part of the 1% of the 1% of their time. History, for the most part, remembers them warmly because of their donations, but they were/are relatively sh*tty humans. However, donating large sums of money has always been a way to launder a terrible image like no other.
Part of those court documents feel a bit like R Kelly reloaded. With the coercive control and ongoing cycle of abuse. Only difference is Cassie wasn't underage (though 19 is still young and impressionable) but it does feel like Diddy has similar s£xu@l tendencies and k!nks.
— Waïki Harnais (@WaikiHarnais) November 17, 2023
Diddy has never been one to be charitable, other than to his mother, of course, so why now?
Shortly after Diddy released publishing to Bad Boy artists, Aubrey O’Day alluded to an astonishing darkness which would be coming to light shortly as the real motive behind his perceived kindness. Hollywood is notoriously tight-lipped about being notoriously loose, but some things do slip out, and this is not the first time Diddy has been accused of being into more than just kinky sex, but most specifically Diddy has been accused of being a sexual groomer, with Usher and Justin Bieber. Usher, himself confirmed that he was exposed to orgies and wild parties at the age of 15. In no way, shape, or form is that acceptable, and I’m pretty sure it might be illegal.
When Cassie met Diddy, she was 19, he was 37 and signed her to a 10-album deal, which is obviously insane, especially for an artist who himself admitted, on national television, still needed development. Signing her to a 10-album deal was a way to ensure he would have control over her career for years to come. It was just as much a ruse as walking hours to get Cheesecake at a bakery that was closed. Maybe the cheesecake is why Diddy has remained untouched for so long: he’s entertaining, and entertaining people are infamous for being able to get away with irrevocably harming others because we enjoy who they are and what they do, because their music is the soundtrack for some of our greatest memories, because they have wealth, and because we perceive that their lifestyles of excess, make this sh*tty life worth living, even if it destroys others.
He signed her to a ten album deal….TEN?!??? He really is diabolical.
— Kyla Jenée Lacey (@Kyla_Lacey) November 17, 2023
Diddy is a fairly handsome guy with a huge personality. He’s likeable, funny even, even if nothing else, but on the surface; he is the personification of extended youth and a good time.
So many of us delighted in Diddy’s antics over the years. One of Dave Chappelle’s most famous skits made light of Diddy’s over-the-top antics, antics he could only perpetrate because he had the money and resources to do so. Making the Band, a TV show which ironically started its first season with another sexual predator at the helm, Lou Pearlman, is where Chappelle drew inspiration from many of Diddy’s most entitled moments. Even if some of those moments were cruel, so many of us are guilty of finding comedy in them. Under Diddy, the Making The Band franchise showcased his pursuit to form the ultimate R&B girl group and a hip-hop group that featured one singer and four rappers, Danity Kane and Da Band, respectively. Members of both groups have expressed extreme disdain for their former employer, including Freddy P of Da Band, stating that his experience working under the mogul made him contemplate suicide. Even with several other artists expressing how Diddy has cheated them out of royalties or refused to release them from unfair contracts, large institutions like the Grammy’s and BET are still giving him special awards for his iconism because, frankly, it does not matter much in an industry that is known for exploiting the young and hungry.
It’s ironic that the music magnate who has dubbed himself Love (which he also named his most recent child whom he had with a woman 25 years his junior) is so hated by his former artists.
If what the lawsuit alleges is true, which is the part about Diddy blowing up Kid Cudi’s car because of his romantic interest in Cassie, has already been affirmed by the star, Diddy is a criminal. One who may have escaped the law previously (pinning his crime on one of his own artists), but the fact is, he was her employer, making her allegations of sexual harassment and coercion that much more important and substantial. Workplace sexual harassment is not punishable with jail time, but rape is, even with its insanely low conviction rate.
Diddy allegedly blew up Kid Cudi’s car, was having Usher in orgies with older women as a minor, was pimping/abusing Cassie, broke Kim Porter’s nose on a yacht, stole from his artists, didn’t tell Lil Kim MJ wanted to collaborate … That man’s evil has finally caught up with him.
— mamncane (@Kim_Khandashisa) November 17, 2023
Some outlets report that he is under investigation by the NYPD for sexual assault. With that kind of history of violence, there has got to be some evidence floating around—no matter how many people he has paid off to destroy it—so who knows, maybe this case will finally be the bridge that keeps Godzilla from destroying the rest of the city.