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Janice Combs, mother to Sean “Diddy” Combs, has released a statement on behalf of the Combs family amid ongoing sex crime allegations against the music mogul.
Combs was indicted by federal prosecutors in mid-September on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and denied bail.
In a statement released Sunday (Oct. 6) through attorney Natlie G. Figgers, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Combs’ mother said Diddy is not guilty of the allegations against him: “My son is not the monster they have painted him to be, and he deserves the chance to tell his side.”
“It is heartbreaking to see my son judged not for the truth, but for a narrative created out of lies,” reads her statement, which comes five days after it was reported Diddy will face lawsuits from 120 additional accusers for alleged incidents dating as far back as 1991. “To bear witness [to] what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence is a pain too unbearable to put into words. Like every human being, my son deserves to have his day in court, to finally share his side, and to prove his innocence.”
Indictment documents unsealed on Sept. 17 said, “For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct. To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
Combs was denied bail. If convicted of the charges, he faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life behind bars.
On Sunday, his mother said, “I am not here to portray my son as perfect because he is not. He has made mistakes in his past, as we all have.”
She referenced the lawsuit Combs settled last year from singer and ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who accused him of rape and abuse. Combs had denied her allegations, but when video surfaced of him physically assaulting her in a hotel, issued an apology.
“My son may not have been entirely truthful about certain things, such as denying he has ever gotten violent with an ex-girlfriend when the hotel’s surveillance showed otherwise,” Janice Combs said in her statement. “Sometimes, the truth and a lie become so closely intertwined that it becomes terrifying to admit one part of the story, especially when that truth is outside the norm or is too complicated to be believed. This is why I believe my son’s civil legal team opted to settle the ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit instead of contesting it until the end, resulting in a ricochet effect as the federal government used this decision against my son by interpreting it as an admission of guilt.”
She said this does not make him guilty of the multiple “repulsive allegations and the grave charges leveled against him.”
“Many individuals who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated had their freedom taken from them not because they were guilty of the crimes they were accused of, but because they didn’t fit the image of what this society considers to be a ‘good person.’ History has showed us how individuals can be wrongfully convicted due to their past actions or mistakes,” she said.
“It is truly agonizing to watch the world turn against my son so quickly and easily over lies and misconceptions, without ever hearing his side or affording him the opportunity to present his side,” she added.
“These lies thrown at him are motivated by those seeking a financial gain, and not justice,” reads the statement. “These individuals saw how quickly my son’s civil legal team settled his ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit, so they believe they can receive a quick payday by falsely accusing my son. False allegations of sexual assault thwart true victims of sexual violence from getting the justice they deserve. To make matters worse, the federal government is now using these lies to prosecute my son. This injustice has been unbearable for our family. The worst part of this ordeal is watching my beloved son be stripped of his dignity, not for what he did, but for what people choose to believe about him.”
On Sunday (Oct. 6) night, the American Music Awards celebrated a half century with the two-hour American Music Awards 50th Anniversary Special on CBS. The evening featured various walks down memory lane as well as new performances from today’s biggest artists, each one representing a different musical genre. For the boy band tribute, Stray Kids […]
Sabrina Carpenter shared Taylor Swift‘s massive stage before embarking on her own fall arena tour. The Short n’ Sweet singer is now sharing what it’s like to be in the pop idol’s presence, and to have her support, in a new interview with CBS This Morning.
“You just watch her, like, walk in a room and it’s very easy to understand that she’s so composed, she’s graceful, she’s gracious,” Carpenter, who was one of Swift’s Eras Tour openers, said in the CBS segment that aired Sunday morning (Oct. 6).
Asked about the advice Swift has given her on handling fame, the 25-year-old artist explained, “I wouldn’t say it’s, like, a verbal thing as much as just, like, she’s very supportive of me and knows who I am as a person and is very supportive of that. So I’m grateful for that.”
Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet album returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated Oct. 12, Billboard reported Sunday afternoon, making it four nonconsecutive weeks that the set has topped the list since its release on Aug. 23.
On the Hot 100, Carpenter is the first artist this decade to spend five weeks with at least three simultaneous top 10s on the chart, with hit singles “Espresso,” “Please, Please Please” and “Taste” all securing spots.
It’s quite the feat for the singer-songwriter who’s been working on her craft since she was a kid, uploading YouTube videos of herself covering songs like Swift’s before landing a record deal and the lead role on the Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World as a teen.
On the fame that comes with the success she’s experiencing now, Carpenter noted, “I think, again, if we’re talking about how to deal with it all, I think everyone has such an individual, unique experience that there’s no kind of blanket statement or advice on how to not let it rattle you. You just kind of have to exist and figure out what you can handle and what you don’t want to deal with.”
“You find the people that you surround yourself with that make you feel safe and go from there,” she added.
Watch Carpenter’s CBS This Morning interview clip below. She’s currently on the road in North America for the Short n’ Sweet Tour, with dates scheduled through mid-November. Carpenter will bring the show to Europe in March 2025.
Sabrina Carpenter reflects on Taylor Swift’s influence, noting her composure and support, and reflects on surrounding yourself with supportive people while navigating fame: “You kind of just figure it out along the way. https://t.co/sGO4dlvPXm pic.twitter.com/B2W32orJr5— CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 (@CBSSunday) October 5, 2024
Ariana Grande joins Charli XCX on the upcoming Brat remixes album, and the two have seemingly confirmed Grande’s feature is on the track “Sympathy Is a Knife.” “It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page/ It’s a knife when they won’t believe you/ Why should you explain?” Charli wrote in a […]
LISA‘s “Moonlit Floor” has topped this week’s new music poll that features artists in various genres of music.
Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Oct. 4) on Billboard, choosing the BLACKPINK singer’s new solo single as their favorite new music release of the past week.
“Moonlit Floor” brought in 96% of the vote on the poll, securing a very notable edge ahead of new releases from Coldplay (Moon Music), Finneas (For Cryin’ Out Loud!), the Joker: Folie à Deux soundtrack, James Bay (Changes All the Time), and others.
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LISA dropped “Moonlit Floor” after she debuted it live at Global Citizen Fest in September. The swoon-worthy song interpolates Sixpence None the Richer‘s hit “Kiss Me,” which reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1998. The single was on the group’s self-titled album, released in 1997.
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“Kiss me under the Paris twilight/ Kiss me out on the moonlit floor” the K-pop superstar sings in the ethereal chorus, replacing Sixpence None the Richer’s original lyric, “Kiss me beneath the milky twilight/ Lead me out on the moonlit floor.”
“Moonlit Floor” comes amid an exciting year for LISA, as the singer stepped into a new phase of her solo career outside of BLACKPINK with “Rockstar,” which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard Global 200 and became her first-ever No. 1 hit on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. She also teamed up with Rosalía for a collaboration, “New Woman.”
Trailing far behind LISA on this week’s poll is Coldplay’s Moon Music, which brought in nearly 2% of the vote. The British band’s Max Martin-produced 10th album features a variety of collaborations, including including Jon Hopkins, Little Simz, Burna Boy, Ayra Starr, Elyanna and TINI. Coldplay’s latest album is a continuation of the group’s 2021 effort, Music of the Spheres, which opened at No. 4 on the Billboard 200.
See the final results of this week’s poll below. Check out Billboard‘s Friday Music Guide to catch up with more must-hear releases from this week.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet rises 3-1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Oct. 12), notching its fourth nonconsecutive week atop the list. It earned 100,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Oct. 3 (up less than 1%), according to Luminate.
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Short n’ Sweet debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Sept. 7, spent its first three weeks at No. 1, and then stepped away for two weeks as Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo rode to the top (Sept. 28 chart) and Future’s Mixtape Pluto debuted in the penthouse (Oct. 5 chart).
Also in the top 10, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft returns to the top five for the first time in more than a month, as it ascends 8-5. The No. 2-peaking set was last in the top five on the Aug. 31 chart, when it ranked at No. 5. The album’s ascent — with a 10% unit gain — is concurrent with the launch of Eilish’s tour on Sept. 29 and the premiere of the official music video for the album’s single “Birds of a Feather” on Sept. 27.
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The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 12, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Oct. 8). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Short n’ Sweet’s 100,000 equivalent album units earned in its third week, SEA units comprise 85,000 (up 1%, equaling 114.24 million on-demand official streams of the album’s 12 songs; it holds at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), album sales comprise 14,000 (down 3%) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (down 2%).
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is steady at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 for a fourth nonconsecutive week at its peak (63,000 equivalent album units earned; down 40%). Future’s Mixtape Pluto falls 1-2 in its second week (55,000; down 57%), Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time rises 5-4 (50,000; down 5%), and Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft steps 8-5 (nearly 50,000; up 10%).
Post Malone’s former leader F-1 Trillion falls 4-6 (47,000 equivalent album units; down 11%); Taylor Swift’s chart-topping The Tortured Poets Department is a non-mover at No. 7 (44,000; down 5%); Noah Kahan’s Stick Season climbs 10-8 (37,000; down 1%); Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene moves 11-9 (just over 32,000; down 8%); and Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album rises 12-10 (32,000; down 5%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Greeicy and Jay Wheeler’s joint effort “¿Qué Te Pasó?” has topped this week’s new music Latin poll. In a poll published on Friday (Oct. 4) — in support of the weekly New Music Latin roundup and playlist, curated by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — music fans voted for the Colombian pop star’s and […]
The Lonely Island returned to Saturday Night Live on Oct. 5 with a hilarious new track about consuming sushi in some unsavory places.
In the trio’s first song on the long-running show since 2018, group members Andy Samberg and Akiva Schaffer (minus Jorma Taccone, who is credited as a writer) reunited for a SNL Digital Short titled “Sushi Glory Hole,” in which the two sharply-dressed comedians pitch skeptical investors (played by Maya Rudolph, Bowen Yang and Kenan Thompson) on a fishy business idea: “Sushi being fed through a hole in the wall.”
Samberg and Schaffer, donning 1980s-looking business suits, then play a cassette and begin rapping about their seemingly brilliant idea, as the scene cuts to SNL cast member James Austin Johnson dropping to his knees in a bathroom stall to receive a piece of raw fish on rice through a small hole. Unconvinced on their pitch, Yang and Rudolph’s disgusted characters begin to walk out of the board room.
“Hey, where you going? Hear us out!” Samberg and Schaffer beg over and over before stepping up their game. “You forgot to eat, now you’re out and about. But you wanna be discreet, can’t be eatin’ omakase in the middle of the street. Then you open the app: SGH is all over the map,” they pair continues. “So you head to a club, hit the bathroom stall, find the sushi-size hole in the bathroom wall. Then make a wish, and prepare for some shockingly high grade fish!”
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The pitch ultimately fails and Yang’s character is seen getting into his car, only to be surprised by Samberg and Schaffer, who are waiting for him in the back seat as a creepy last-ditch effort.
Elsewhere during Saturday’s Nate Bargatze-hosted episode, Coldplay appeared as musical guest for the eighth time to perform songs from the band’s just-released 10th album, Moon Music. The Chris Martin-fronted group brought down the house with beautiful deliveries of “All My Love” and “We Pray,” the latter featuring guest appearances by Elyanna and TINI.
SNL season 50 premiered last weekend, with Jean Smart hosting and Jelly Roll as musical guest. The next show on Oct. 12 will see Ariana Grande hosting again, with Stevie Nicks returning as the musical guest for the first time since her one-and-only performance on the show in 1983.
Watch the SNL Digital Short “Sushi Glory Hole” below. For those without cable, the broadcast streams on Peacock, which you can sign up for at the link here. Having a Peacock account also gives fans access to previous SNL episodes.
Madonna‘s younger brother, Christopher Ciccone, has died at the age of 63.
Christopher passed away after a battle with cancer on Friday (Oct. 4) in Michigan, his representative confirmed to TMZ.
The Queen of Pop has faced many deaths in her family as of late. Christopher’s passing arrives less than two weeks after the death of Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, who also had cancer. The pop superstar’s oldest brother, Anthony Ciccone, also passed away in February 2023 of respiratory failure and throat cancer. He was 66.
Madonna hadn’t publicly commented on Christopher’s passing at press time. Billboard has reached out to her reps for comment.
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Christopher — one of Madonna’s seven siblings — began his entertainment career as one of his sister’s backup dancers before moving on to direct music videos for such stars as Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett. He also served as the art director for Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour and was the tour director for her 1993 The Girlie Show.
Madonna and Christopher, who was also an artist and interior designer, had a falling out that was documented in his 2008 book, Life With My Sister Madonna, which reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list. He claimed that the singer outed him in a 1991 interview with The Advocate, saying, “My brother Christopher’s gay, and he and I have always been the closest members of my family.”
Christopher later addressed his relationship with Madonna in a 2012 interview with The Evening Standard. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re good. We are in contact with each other, although I haven’t seen her for a long time. We’re back to being a brother and sister. I don’t work for her, and it’s better this way,” he said at the time.
“I couldn’t be more proud of her. She is a force to be reckoned with. Does she have Barbra Streisand’s voice? No,” Christopher added about his sister. “Can she dance like Martha Graham? Probably not. But the combination of her abilities has made her great, and left a huge legacy for her, and through her, for me. So yeah, God bless her.”
Christopher married British hairdresser Ray Thacker in 2016.
Coldplay brought Moon Music to Studio 8H. The Chris Martin-fronted band returned to Saturday Night Live for the eighth time as musical guest on Oct. 5 to deliver a pair of new songs from their just-released 10th album, Moon Music. With an introduction from SNL host Nate Bargatze, Coldplay opened with a beautifully raw performance […]