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Disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs‘ precipitous fall from grace will be chronicled in the upcoming BBC investigative documentary P Diddy: The Rise and Fall. According to the BBC, the doc will examine the highs and lows of Combs, “whose influence and impact is undeniable, but whose legacy could not be indelibly tarnished.”
The doc — the latest in an increasingly long list of such films and series exploring Combs’ highs and lows — will be hosted by award-winning broadcaster Yinka Bokinni and air on the BBC Three and iPlayer on April 28. Combs has been in jail for nearly eight months as he awaits the May 5 start of his upcoming trial in a federal criminal case in which he is charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, with prosecutors alleging that he “abused, threatened and coerced women” in the furtherance of a “criminal enterprise” that allegedly involved kidnapping, arson, bribery and forced labor. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges and last week lost a bid to delay the start of the trial.
He is also facing dozens of other lawsuits accusing him of rape and assault, allegations he has denied.
The BBC said that Bokinni will explore how Combs “has gone from being the world’s biggest Hip-hop mogul, to hemorrhaging friends and fans in a matter of months,” mapping both his extraordinary success and influence in fashion, music and culture, “while meeting those close to him to understand what may have led to this very public disgrace… [and] unpack[ing] the interplay of power, money, moral corruption, and sexism, which underpins this story.”
Bokinni said, “My job is to tell stories — but never did I imagine I’d be telling this one. Investigating the alleged actions of Diddy has forced a spotlight onto the darker side of an industry so many of us dream of belonging to. We sang his songs, bought into the lifestyle, watched the shows and wanted more. This has been an emotional, sometimes difficult experience. And with a trial on the horizon, what happens next will no doubt be gripping — in the most sobering way.”
The BBC effort is one of a raft of docs exploring Combs’ undoing, including Max’s The Fall of Diddy, TMZ’s The Downfall of Diddy, as well as Prime Video’s Diddy: Monster’s Fall, Diddy: Summit to Plummet and an upcoming Netflix doc from 50 Cent’s G-Unit Films whose release date has not yet been announced.
Tech N9ne shared on Bunnie XO‘s latest podcast episode that he had an inappropriate relationship with one of his middle school teachers when he was going on 13 years old.
The artist born Aaron Yates stopped by the Dumb Blonde podcast Monday (April 21) to talk about his legendary independent career and also took a moment to discuss his childhood. In particular, he focused on a relationship he had with a teacher — whom he did not name — that he said changed his life forever.
“It all started when I showed her a picture of my father as a cop,” the rapper said around the 35-minute mark. “After class, whenever everybody’s leaving out, I would be in there and she would say, ‘Aaron is soo cute’ … She was beautiful, and I was like, ‘Oh, thank you!’ But she used to do it every day, like, ‘Aaron is sooo cute.’”
He said things started to escalate from there, and he used to skip lunch to go and visit his teacher in her classroom.
“I was in love, until she got married,” Tech N9ne said, adding that they got caught kissing by a student walking by the classroom. He got called up to “courtroom class” as a result, which was code for “Ms. Glen’s room” upstairs, where students would get sent following bad behavior.
“Ms. Glen, she was a Black lady, she didn’t want no f—k s—t,” Tech recalled with a laugh. “She said, ‘Aaron, there’s a student in here … that says they walked by Ms. So-and-So’s room and saw both of you kissing … I said, ‘Huh? Why would I be kissing a grown-up?’ I was smart.”
He continued to deny the kiss, and both the seventh grade teacher and Tech got called to the office, where she also denied the allegations.
“I remember her pleading her case and being real serious,” Tech said, “and nothing happened … ’cause I didn’t tell.”
But the rapper did confirm to Bunnie, who is married to country music star Jelly Roll, that he was also having sex with her outside of school.
“She got married in my eighth grade year, and after that we didn’t talk anymore,” Tech concluded, before moving into a conversation about his love of horror films.
Watch Tech talk about his relationship around the 28-minute mark in the video, and find the full episode on Spotify.
Coachella 2025 will likely be considered one of the most political editions of the longstanding festival, with a flurry of artists using their onstage platforms to make statements on topics including Palestine, ICE, the Trump administration and more.
Nicolas Jaar of psych jam act Darkside used the trio’s Saturday night performances in the Gobi tent to address the audience about a myriad of issues, primarily Palestine. Jaar began his statement by acknowledging that Southern California is the ancestral home of various Native American tribes, with many of these people killed in the mass murders of Native Americans that occurred in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
“Here were committed the genocides that are the blueprint for what’s happening in Palestine right now, the same racist logic,” Jaar stated during the band’s weekend 1 show, on April 12. “We must continue resisting, even from the belly of the beast, because this genocide is funded by American money, with technology from Silicon Valley, thanks to the complicity of all the politicians in this country.”
Jaar continued by referencing Mahmoud Khalil – the detained Columbia University graduate student currently being held in an immigration detention center following his role in on-campus protests.
“I also want to say that today, these days, as some of you may know, just protesting a genocide that is happening means that you can get deported, like Mahmoud Khalil. That doesn’t feel right. Mahmoud and many others are in ICE detention jails. These jails are run for profit by groups like CoreCivic and The GEO Group. They make money off of keeping people in cells. We need to keep fighting them. For the sake of everyone there stuck without trial, and with no hope, we need to give hope. Thank you, everyone.”
Jaar delivered a slightly different version of the same statement during the band’s weekend 2 performance on Saturday, April 19, stating that, “We’ve been on tour for about a month and a half, and during this month and a half, the administration of this country has been deporting people for their political views, they have been locking people up in ICE detention jails. The prisoner count of this country keeps on being the highest in the entire world. There’s more people locked up in California than at Coachella right now, and this country keeps on arming and funding, also with tech and Silicon Valley, the genocide of the Palestinian people and arming and funding Israel’s system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
“But the problem doesn’t stop at this administration and the administration of that country,” he continued. “It’s much deeper than that… It’s based off a system of racism, of ethnic cleansing both here in these lands, and also there. And there’s no way to continue in this planet without the empires falling as soon as possible. In all ways possible. A lot of people tell us to shut up and just play the music, but for us, music is being together, and how can we be together if our brothers and sisters are locked up and our brothers and sisters are literally burning in their homes?”
Elsewhere at the festival’s second weekend, Northern Irish hip-hop group Kneecap ended their performance with strong anti-Israel sentiments. On Friday (April 18), the Belfast trio closed their show by projecting strong messaging in support of Palestinians on their video screens. “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” the projected messages read. “It is being enabled by the U.S. government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes. F— Israel; free Palestine.” This display came a week after the band claimed Coachella censored the pro-Palestinian messaging during their debut at the event.
On the main stage, headliners Green Day also changed the lyrics of “American Idiot” to state “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.” Other artists including Bob Vylan and Blonde Redhead displayed Palestinian flags during their sets. During the performance by this latter artists, the onstage event was soundtracked by audio of Khalil. Senator Bernie Sanders also appeared onstage during Clairo’s weekend 1 performance and urged festivalgoers to “stand up and fight for justice.”
Snoop Dogg‘s mind-bending new “Last Dance With Mary Jane” music video arrived just in time for 4/20. Featuring guest Jelly Roll and a depiction of the late Tom Petty — the track samples a Petty and the Heartbreakers classic, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” — the visual also includes Dr. Dre (who produced the song), the […]
Azealia Banks is walking back her support for Donald Trump. The “212” rapper said on Wednesday (April 16) that she regrets casting a vote for Trump in last year’s presidential election. Banks took to X and wrote that “we made a f—ing mess” voting to put Trump back on the Oval Office. “Like this is […]
A Manhattan federal judge on Friday denied a bid by Sean “Diddy” Combs to delay his sex trafficking and racketeering trial by two months, ruling that the request was made too close to his trial date.
The star’s lawyers asked for the delay on Wednesday (April 16), arguing they didn’t have enough time to prepare for trial after prosecutors added new charges earlier this month. But according to Reuters, Judge Arun Subramanian denied that motion at a court hearing on Friday (April 18).
Endorsing an argument made by the prosecutors, Subramanian said that the new indictment largely overlapped with earlier charging papers. According to CNN, the judge told Combs’ lawyers that it was “unclear why there isn’t sufficient time to prepare.”
Friday’s ruling means that, barring any last-minute disruptions, jury selection will begin on May 5 and testimony will begin on May 12. Representatives for Combs’ legal team did not immediately return a request for comment.
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to “fulfill his sexual desires” by subjecting numerous women to abuse. The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial has long been set to start in May. If convicted on all of the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
In a letter to the judge filed Wednesday, the star’s lawyers claimed the feds were dragging their feet on turning over crucial evidence, and that the extra two months would give them “the necessary time to prepare his defense” for a new superseding indictment filed April 3.
The request — far longer than the two-week delay Diddy’s lawyers had hinted they might seek — was opposed by prosecutors, who said the new charges were not sufficiently different to require any delay at all, and that Combs was not entitled to the evidence he claimed he was owed.
In addition to denying the delay, Subramanian made another important ruling Friday. According to Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press, the judge granted a request from prosecutors to allow three alleged victims to testify under Jane Doe pseudonyms. Diddy’s lawyers had called the move “a blatant violation of Mr. Combs’s Sixth Amendment rights to confront witnesses,” but prosecutors said it was necessary to protect them from harassment and embarrassment.
The judge seemingly left at least one big pretrial issue unresolved: a motion filed by Combs on Thursday seeking to ban prosecutors from showing jurors the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura. Combs says the clips has been edited and will “confuse and mislead the jury”; prosecutors says it’s a “damning piece of evidence” that must be admitted.
The New Pornographers have “immediately” severed ties with drummer Joe Seiders after the longtime member of the rock collective was arrested in Palm Desert, CA for possession of child pornography.
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According to a press release from the Riverside Sheriff’s office, Seiders was arrested after officers were dispatched to investigate a report of suspicious activity on April 7 at a Chick-Fil-A restaurant, where an 11-year-old boy told officers that an unknown man had recorded him on a cell phone while he was using the bathroom. Two days later, police said an employee at the same restaurant reported that the man was seen entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males.
“Believing the male was the suspect from the previous incident, law enforcement was contacted. Upon arrival, deputies located the suspect, identified as 44-year-old Joseph Seiders of Palm Desert, and took him into custody,” read the release. After an investigation, officers served search warrants on Seiders’ residence, vehicle and cell phone, where they reportedly found evidence implicating Seiders in both incidents and “additional crimes,” which they said included possessing child pornography.
Seiders was booked into the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio, CA for possession of child pornography, annoying/molesting a child, invasion of privacy, and attempted invasion of privacy. At press time a spokesperson for the band had not returned Billboard‘s request for additional information on the incident.
In a statement on Instagram, the band wrote, “Everyone in the band is absolutely shocked, horrified and devastated by the news of the charges against Joe Seiders — and we have immediately severed all ties with him. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been impacted by his actions.”
Seiders joined the Canadian indie power pop supergroup — which formed in Vancouver in 1997 — in 2014, joining charter members singer Neko Case, singer/guitarist Carl Newman and bassist John Collins. He appeared on their 2017 album Whiteout Conditions, as well as 2019’s In the Morse Code of Brake Lights and 2023’s Continue as a Guest, as well as their recent single “Ballad of the Last Payphone.” The drummer is being held at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility with bail set at $1 million and is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday (April 22).
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
Attorneys for Sean “Diddy” Combs asked a federal judge Thursday (April 17) to exclude the infamous 2016 surveillance video of him assaulting his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura from his upcoming sex trafficking trial, arguing it would “unfairly confuse and mislead the jury.”
The headline-grabbing clip, showing Combs striking his then-girlfriend in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, has been “altered, manipulated, sped-up, and edited to be out of sequence,” making it unusable as evidence at his trial next month, his lawyers told the judge.
“The admission of any of these inaccurate, unreliable video files would unfairly confuse and mislead the jury at Mr. Combs’s expense,” the star’s lawyers wrote in the filing. “Their admission would be infinitely more prejudicial than probative.”
In the lead up to the trial, Combs’ lawyers have repeatedly targeted the Cassie tape — likely a core piece of evidence that the government will present to jurors. In one motion, they argued that federal authorities had improperly leaked it to the press to “taint the jury pool.” Last month, they accused CNN of significantly altering the clip and then destroying the original before the network aired it last May.
With Thursday’s filing, Combs’ lawyers finally did what court-watchers were expecting: formally asking the judge to ban the clip from the trial. They cited a report from a forensic video expert that said the clip had been distorted beyond repair, including edits by CNN that Combs’ team says were intentionally made to make the video look worse.
“The manipulation of the videos was specifically designed to inflame the passions of CNN’s viewing audience, and that is what the government is hoping to leverage in this case,” Combs’ attorneys write. “The videos are sped up to make the violence look more violent. The sequence is reordered to leave the viewer with the impression that the woman has been dragged back to a hotel room. And the clips delete footage that provides important context making clear that the events were not as horrific as the government will suggest.”
Combs was indicted in September, charged with running a sprawling criminal operation that aimed to “fulfill his sexual desires.” The case centers on elaborate “freak off” parties in which Combs and others would allegedly ply victims with drugs and then coerce them into having sex, as well as on alleged acts of violence to keep victims silent.
A trial is currently set for May 5, though Combs’ lawyers are currently seeking to push the trial back by two months. If convicted on all of the charges, which include sex trafficking and racketeering, Combs faces a potential life prison sentence.
The Cassie video, which aired on CNN in May, showed him attacking her at the Intercontinental Hotel in March 2016. The clip drew far more public attention to the accusations against the star — who was then only facing a civil lawsuit — and prompted an apology from Combs shortly after it aired.
“My behavior on that video is inexcusable,” Combs said at the time. “I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry.”
Prosecutors and plaintiffs’ attorneys have criticized Combs and his lawyers over their efforts to bar the video from his trial. In one filing, the government said Combs was attacking the clip in an effort to “suppress a damning piece of evidence.” And Douglas Wigdor, Cassie’s attorney, called the star’s arguments “disingenuous” last month: “I am confident that the video fairly and accurately represents what happened, will be admitted into evidence, and that Combs will be held accountable for his depravity.”
It has been nearly eight months since disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested and sent to New York’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center to await trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. And while the formerly high-flying Bad Boy Records CEO and billionaire entrepreneur was used to the finest things in his former life, according to the New York Times, his life in the communal, dorm-style unit segregated from the rest of the inmates is a study in contrasts from his previous life.
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For starters, the typically dapper MCs hair and beard have gone grey, since hair dye is not allowed in the Brooklyn jail that has long been the source of complaints over its decrepit state, including reports of mold and vermin, extended lockdowns and understaffing. As part of his daily routine, Combs, 55, is woken up for breakfast at 7 a.m. and afterwords has time to exercise in a room with yoga mats and a small basketball hoop, or to hang in a communal space with a ping-pong table and a TV.
Combs’ lawyers have tried, and failed, three times to get their client released on bail on the charges that, if he’s found guilty of, could land Diddy in prison for the rest of his life. While Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges he awaits opening statements in the trail slated to begin on May 5 over allegations that the rap impresario oversaw a violent criminal conspiracy that allegedly included kidnapping, arson and drug crimes in service of his alleged sexual abuse of multiple men and women to satisfy his need for “sexual gratification.”
For now, Combs is in an area of the jail called 4 North, a fourth floor space where around 20 men are housed. Fellow high-profile inmates on the unit included, until recently, crypto boss Sam Bankman-Fried, along with government informants, including former gang members who have been segregated for their safety from the general jail population; accused United Health Care CEO murderer Luigi Mangione who shares a lawyer with Combs, is housed in the same jail, but in a different unit.
While Combs’ lawyers at first thought their A-list client would be housed in the restrictive Special Housing Unit where inmates spend 23 hours a day inside their cell, he was instead sent to the less harsh 4 North Unit.
A former Mafia informant, Gene Borrello, told the paper that compared to other units in the jail “you have nothing to worry about” on 4 North. As described by the Times, inmates in Combs’ unit are free to move around the space decked out with rows of bunk beds, TVs and a microwave where they are subject to repeated mandatory check-ins of their bunks by correction officers every day.
Inmates, who are issued brown jail clothes, are able to eat their meals in a common area and use a bathroom that has stalls, as well as listen to music or watch movies on a tablet for sale at the commissary, though they do not have any internet or wi-fi access. Diddy meets often with his team of lawyers in a conference room off the common area and has a non-wi-fi enabled laptop to pore over evidence in the case that he can use between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. each day in one of the unit’s visiting rooms.
While Diddy dined on the finest meals provided by private chefs in his former life, the menu in lock-up is decidedly less glamorous, with a rotating menu that includes lasagna or “pasta fazool” for vegetarians on the second Friday of each month. There are also Snickers bars and bags of Cheez-Its for sale in the commissary, along with toiletries, radios and watches. Inmates can spend up to $180 at the commissary every two weeks from funds provided by friends and family, with one crucial item, $1 packets of mackerel (“macks”) serving as a key bartering tool among the incarcerated.
Combs is allowed to have visitors on Tuesdays and while he can make phone calls — such as a recent one to rapper Ye — the conversations are capped at 15 minutes and they are subject to monitoring by authorities. The story noted that during a pre-planned sweep of the jail in search of contraband last year, prosecutors claim an investigator took photos of some of Combs’ personal notes. The pictures allegedly included birthday reminders, as well as notes the government claims were evidence that Diddy was trying to obstruct the prosecution, including one in which he allegedly directed a staffer to find “dirt” on two of his alleged victims.
The rapper’s lawyers claimed that was proof the government was trying to “spy” on their client and eavesdrop on confidential communications with counsel. Prosecutors denied that claim and said none of the notes would be used in their case and a judge agreed that Combs’ rights had not been violated.
But according to the Times, the incident revealed that Combs had engaged in the widespread practice of buying other inmates’ phone time by having his team put money in their commissary accounts, with prosecutors claiming that on some of the calls he talked about using public statements to help influence the jury pool’s perception of him. He also allegedly used three-way calling to try and contact potential witnesses to avoid blocks on calling people outside of his approved contact list.
While the current accommodations are, as expected, spare and somewhat harsh, they likely pale in comparison to the federal prison Combs could be sent to convicted on the charges in the eight-week trial. Even as he awaits his upcoming trial, Combs was hit with an updated indictment earlier this month that added new charges to the sweeping case against him. The superseding indictment added a new sex trafficking count, accusing Combs of using force, fraud or coercion to compel a woman to engage in commercial sex acts as recently as last year. It also added a new count of transporting that victim and others to engage in prostitution. The updated charges increased the total counts against Diddy from three to five.
Combs is also facing dozens of civil lawsuits from a number of men and women who claim the rap impresario allegedly sexually abused, sex trafficked and threatened them with violence.
Marc Nathan, the promotion and A&R executive who in his 55-year career helped Barenaked Ladies, 3 Doors Down and more get record deals, has died. He was 70.
He passed away earlier this week at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, a representative says. A statement said Nathan had “been ill for some time and he finally succumbed to a variety of afflictions.”
Nathan got his foot in the door in the music industry at just 15 years old, when the then-Queens, New York, kid wrote a letter to Todd Rundgren and received a reply from Ampex Records’ Paul Fishkin, in regards to a track listing anomaly he found on Rundgren’s Runt album.
“He just so happened to open a stack of Todd’s fan mail that day. If he hadn’t opened that stack of mail that day, you know … My life would have been altered forever,” Nathan said in an interview in 2019.
Nathan soon landed his first industry job in radio promotion at Ampex, which led to him building a career with roles in promotion at labels including Bearsville, Casablanca, Playboy, Sire and Atlantic.
“I lost my best friend of 55 years,” Fishkin noted following his death. “Marc Nathan walked like he talked as well as anyone I’ve ever known. His irascible, acquired taste persona was what I enjoyed the most, even though maddening at times. We had much in common chiding and deriding phonies and pretentious fools in sports, politics, but most importantly, the music business. We occasionally enjoyed busting each other as well. We delighted in having our own sometimes hilarious shorthand putting us on the floor at times with uncontrollable laughter. He was a great record man, and a baseball and hockey chronicler supreme, among his many talents and passions. And yes, I have stories! But most important was his loyalty and support for all the right people and issues. And he never let me down in all those 55 years.”
Over the years — with stints in New York, Los Angeles and, most recently, Nashville — Nathan also worked in A&R, having a hand in Universal’s acquisition of Cash Money Records, and in talent development for Universal, Capitol, Atlantic/ATCO and imprints.
Among the artists he got signed were the bands 3 Doors Down (at Universal) and Barenaked Ladies (at Sire). He later established a label, Flagship Records, to release solo work from Barenaked Ladies co-founder Steven Page.
“Marc was a record person of the highest order,” Page wrote following his death. “He was absolutely and passionately obsessed with music and amassed an encyclopedic memory for songs, charts and artists. He played a huge role in my career and in my life — a role that arced across our entire shared timeline. Marc was a guy who loved big, emotional music and also too-smart-for-its-own-good pop and had a huge soft spot for silly novelty songs too. We kind of fit the bill perfectly for him and he got us. Marc took our demo tape to Seymour Stein at Sire records, and, thankfully, Seymour got it. While everyone else was calling us a throwaway, Seymour looked at Marc and said, ‘They’re a Simon and Garfunkel for the ‘90s.’ Marc was always especially proud of his involvement, and I’m eternally grateful to him for it.”
Page added, “He was among the first and most persistent of my friends to lend me support, advice and solidarity. He could be a nudge, but that’s only because he had a huge heart and he really, really cared. There were many, many people in his life that he would counsel and coach and cajole and mentor through their darkest hours — he’d been there and back several times himself — and I’m proud and grateful to be one of those friends. I’m lucky to have known him.”