Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs is at the centre of shocking allegations since his arrest last month, and his infamous parties are now being called into question amid the legal turmoil.
In a federal indictment unsealed Sept. 17, Combs was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. The charges are tied to so-called “freak offs,” coerced sex acts that Combs allegedly orchestrated and recorded. At this point, little is known about the connection between the rapper’s notorious “White Parties” and the “freak offs,” other than both were alleged events held by Combs.
Through his legal team, Combs has denied all recent allegations levelled against him and claims his innocence.
Now, the music mogul sits behind bars after being denied bail twice, and faces a growing list of sexual assault and abuse allegations. Last week, Texas-based lawyer Tony Buzbee revealed he’s representing 120 accusers who have shared dozens of new claims.
“Many powerful people … many dirty secrets,” Buzbee said of the allegations, announced at a press conference. He said his team has “collected pictures, video, texts,” and that the list of names collected “will shock you.”
Online sleuths and those closely following the allegations against Combs have gone to work, resurfacing old interviews and clips of celebrities and musicians talking about Combs’ elaborate and luxurious A-list parties – comments that, at the time, had the public barely batting an eyelash but are now being looked at more critically.
Combs himself has addressed his parties in the past: In 1999 he told Entertainment Tonight that “they’re going to probably be arresting me, doing all types of crazy things just because we want to have a good time. Whenever you bring up a different element into people’s environment, things that broaden people’s horizons, people get intimidated. It’s a lot of people out there that feel intimidated by it.”
He also revealed to Conan O’Brien in 2002 his secrets to throwing a “killer party”: “Women. Beautiful women, of course. Beautiful men for the ladies, of course. You need some water. I don’t know if guys have noticed this but a lot of ladies drink water at parties, so if you don’t have what they need, they’re going to leave. Gotta keep them there. Need locks on the doors,” he told the late-night host.
When O’Brien said using locks on the doors sounded “kinda dangerous,” Combs admitted it was “a little kinky.”
Read on to see what Hollywood’s A-list has said about their connections with Combs over the years, some of the interviews that have resurfaced and which celebrities chose to attend or skip events hosted by the entertainment mogul. While many people have shared their thoughts on the rapper and his parties over the years, it does not mean that they are affiliated with any of Combs’ actions or alleged crimes in any way.
Khloé Kardashian
In a 2014 episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, the famous socialite and entrepreneur reflected on her recent attendance at a White Party, saying, “This party, I think half the people were butt-naked.”
Usher
In a 2016 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Usher recalled living with the rapper for a year when he was a teen and first building his career under the tutelage of Combs and his record label, Bad Boy Records.
“I went there to see the lifestyle, and I saw it, but I don’t know if I could indulge and understand what I was even looking at. It was pretty wild, it was crazy,” he told Stern.
When pressed on whether he would allow one of his own kids to attend a White Party, he answered with a resounding “Hell, no!”
Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber recently opened up about the pressure of his rise to stardom as several videos of him and Combs resurfaced online.
“I think that I was just living in this shame, living in all this sort of stuff in my past and I wasn’t able to move on,” he told radio host Zane Lowe about his career, which started when he was just a child.
Addressing the intense microscope he has lived under since his rise to stardom he mentioned, “It was bad. I don’t know if I’d be alive for sure.”
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As a teen, Bieber documented a weekend spent with the rap mogul and the video, which remains on YouTube, is receiving a fresh examination.
In the video, Combs boasted about getting “buck fool crazy” with the teen popstar, presenting Bieber with a gift of a luxury car and saying he “can’t really disclose” what he and Bieber would be getting up to and where they would be hanging out for the weekend, but described it as “a 15-year-old’s dream.”
“He’s signed to Usher — I had legal guardianship of Usher when he did his first album. I don’t really have legal guardianship of him, but for the next 48 hours, he’s with me. And we’re gonna go buck fool crazy,” he continued.
Katt Williams
Comedian and actor Katt Williams has been speaking out about Combs for years, and earlier this year addressed the rapper’s actions during an interview with Club Shay Shay, predicting that the Bad Boy Records founder would be “catching hell in 2024.”
“I had to turn down $50 million four times to protect my integrity.” Williams continued, going on to say, “because P. Diddy be wanting to party, and you gotta tell him no!”
More recently, Williams made some serious claims about the music producer during a stand-up set.
Video of the live performance, posted on Sept. 28 after Combs was charged, saw Williams joking about the 10,000 bottles of baby oil that were seized by investigators when they raided Combs’ mansions in Los Angeles and Miami earlier this year.
“P. Diddy’s dumba– lawyer said, ‘He probably got it at Costco.’ Costco hit right back, ‘We don’t even sell baby oil,'” Williams said.
Later in the set he said: “They put drugs in the baby oil. You think you be getting a massage, b—h you can’t even get up!” He also told the crowd, “I’m not lying y’all, I’m telling the truth about me.”
Eminem
A long-standing beef between Eminem and Combs has simmered for years, but Eminem’s song Fuel, released in July, seems to contain a pretty damning hit against Combs in light of recent allegations.
The lyrics read: “I’m like a R-A-P-E-R. Got so many eses / Wait, he didn’t just spell the world ‘rapper’ and leave out a P, did he?” Online sleuths were quick to notice that “eses” sounds just like “S.A.,” an abbreviation for sexual assault, while “P, did he?” sounded like P. Diddy, one of Combs’ many aliases.
50 Cent
Speaking of beefs, rapper 50 Cent has been very vocal about his dislike for Combs over the years, which has only ramped up in recent months.
50 Cent has spoken about Combs’ parties in the past, describing the atmosphere as “uncomfortable,” and has promised a tell-all documentary is in the works titled Diddy Do It?, which is set to cover all of the recent allegations.
“This is a story with significant human impact. It is a complex narrative spanning decades, not just the headlines or clips seen so far,” 50 and director Alexandria Stapleton said in a joint statement to Variety late last month. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to give a voice to the voiceless and to present authentic and nuanced perspectives.”
They continued: “While the allegations are disturbing, we urge all to remember that Sean Combs’ story is not the full story of hip-hop and its culture. We aim to ensure that individual actions do not overshadow the culture’s broader contributions.”
Ashton Kutcher
“I’ve got a lot I can’t tell,” Kutcher revealed about attending Combs’ White Parties on a 2019 episode of Hot Ones. “Can’t tell that one either. … I’m actually cycling through them. Diddy party stories, man, that was some weird memory lane thing.”
He told host Sean Evans that his relationship with the rapper was “really bizarre,” and explained that the two connected when Kutcher was filming the MTV prank show, Punk’d.
“It started over Punk’d because he was like, ‘Yo, you can’t punk me!’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, everybody is on the table.’ That started our conversation. We became fast friends and we used to just hang out, watch football together.”
Ray J
In an interview with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo last month, Ray J claimed that while he’s attended Combs’ parties, he never witnessed any sex trafficking or crimes take place.
“We’ve never seen the stuff that’s being said and the stuff that people are finding out, like, I’ve never been in rooms that people are talking about and I never knew they existed,” he said.
Aubrey O’Day
Aubrey O’Day — who was once signed to Bad Boy Records and worked with the producer in the 2000s — reacted to the news that Combs will soon face more than 100 lawsuits from accusers, writing in a post to X this week that “so many people have tried to warn you.”
“His behavior could have been stopped long before things like this broke our hearts to read, his abuse didn’t have to reach me & many others including women, men, & minors.. whom of which will forever traumatize an entire industry,” she wrote. “He is a soulless human inside of a systemic problem within the entertainment industry that has been ran by soulless people before he even hit the scene.”
“So many people have tried to warn you, but his charisma fooled you,” she added. “A lot of people are responsible for keeping him in a place of power & visibility, and if that part resonates for you … may you feel the same grieving that all of his victims won’t ever be able to fully repair, you were complicit. That needs to be acknowledged before things can truly change. please think twice before you laugh at the jokes circulating.. a lot of people’s lives were changed forever after crossing paths with this man.”
Russell Brand
In a resurfaced video from 2010, Russell Brand told BlackTree TV that Combs took him on an “enforced holiday” when the pair were working on the movie Get Him to the Greek.
“Diddy is new to me, right?” Brand said at the time. “He looked after me, he took me on an enforced holiday to Vegas.”
“He’s a very intense man because… I think he comes from nothing, and now he’s very, very powerful. People that do stuff like that, they’re intense.”
“Now, I like him, he’s very influential,” Brand explained, adding that saying no to Combs was difficult.
“Say that you don’t want to do something and Diddy does want you to do it, it’s really hard to not do that thing … you still do it because you think, ‘Ahh, don’t upset him.’ He’s an influential person.”
“He may ask you for loads of favors and you can’t say no to him. That’s my worry … pressure,” he added. “I don’t want to be nobody’s b—h, I work too hard in life, not even Diddy’s b—h.”
Jenny Mollen
A week after Diddy’s arrest, actor Jenny Mollen took to social media to reveal she was invited to a “freak off” when she was just 19.
“I was in San Diego and this guy came over and he’s like ‘My boss wants to meet you,'” Mollen recalled on Instagram, noting that she was dressed down in jeans and a button-up shirt and “not giving sex vibes.”
She claimed Combs invited her up to his room for a party, but she ultimately declined.
“Guys, would I have been in a freak-off?” she asked her followers, before laughing. “Would I have been captured in his room… and would there be footage of me to this day in sort of a crazy exploitative freak off?”
Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones
Lil Rod, a producer on Combs’ latest album, dropped a bombshell lawsuit against his former boss this year, accusing the rapper of grooming and exposing him to several crimes.
In an August interview with Rolling Stone, he called Combs a “monster” and said he is hiding, afraid that he will be killed.
In the lawsuit, Jones said he spent time living with Combs while working on the album between 2022 and 2023. He claims he was forced by Combs to engage in sex acts, solicit sex workers, and was repeatedly drugged and groped.
“Because of this lawsuit, most people don’t want to come near working with me for whatever reasons, whether they’ve been in partnership with Puff or they want to just sit back and see what happens,” Jones told Rolling Stone.
“He’s a gatekeeper in the music industry,” he added of Combs. “In this industry, to be successful, you have to have worked with someone like him or Jay-Z, Dr. Dre, Kanye or 50 Cent. So many people I’ve worked with have had business deals with him. I reached out to try to get a deal for my album, and people don’t want to get involved.”
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