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Donald Trump doesn’t have Taylor Swift‘s support in the 2024 election, but that isn’t stopping him from using her brand to boost his campaign.
On Thursday (Sept. 12) — two days after the 34-year-old pop star emphatically backed Kamala Harris in this year’s presidential race — the Republican candidate’s team announced that it was selling “Trump Era” T-shirts inspired by the tiled graphic design on much of Swift’s Eras Tour apparel. Featuring a grid of photos of the twice-impeached president, each tinted with almost the exact same colors arranged in the very same pattern as the “Karma” singer’s design, the politician’s new clothing item is selling for $36.
“Calling all Swifties for Trump,” reads a tweet from the former president’s headquarters. “Get your Trump Era shirt today.”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s rep for comment.
Though the pop star hasn’t reacted to the former president’s new merch, Swifties have. “This is a disgrace of a shirt. I hope she strips Donald of everything he has for infringement. @taylorswift13 @taylornation13 GET HIM!” one person tweeted in response to the campaign’s post about the shirt.
“im excited for trumps new era, i heard it’s called the ‘lawsuit era,’” another responded.
“This deserves a cease and desist!” yet another Swiftie tweeted, tagging the pop superstar, official fan page as well as her publicist.
Trump isn’t the only party in the 2024 election capitalizing on Swift’s popularity, with the Harris-Walz camp also recently unveiling Eras-inspired friendship bracelets on the Democratic ticket’s website. One key difference, however, is that the VP’s campaign actually has the support of the 14-time Grammy winner, who broke her silence on the election Sept. 10 with an Instagram post praising Harris for being a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
Swift also cited Trump’s past use of AI-generated images falsely portraying her as a MAGA supporter — another way he’s tried to exploit her image this election — as one of the reasons she felt it important to speak out. In response to the pop superstar’s endorsement of his opponent, the ex-POTUS said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan, it was just a question of time.”
He added at the time: “But she’s a very liberal person, she seems to always endorse a Democrat and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
See Trump’s new merchandise inspired by Swift’s Eras Tour below.
The Kamala Harris campaign has pivoted from its Brat Summer to a new Era. On Friday (Sept. 13) the Democratic National Committee unveiled a new digital billboard campaign in New York and Las Vegas that leans into Taylor Swift‘s endorsement of the presidential bid by the sitting Vice President and her VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
The ads read “We’re In Our Kamala Era!” in reference to Swift’s billion-dollar Eras Tour, as well as “A New Way Forward… Ready For It?,” which is a play on the song of the same name from the singer’s 2017 Reputation album. According to People, the Manhattan billboard is located 22 stories above the iconic red steps in Times Square — a seemingly Swift-esque Easter egg reference to Swift’s songs “22” and “Red” from 2012’s Red album.
Trending on Billboard
Meanwhile the ads on the Las Vegas strip feature a photo of Harris, 59, with the Eras reference, as well as another of Trump, 78, that asks, “Exhausted with this guy?” While Trump is famous for putting his name on a number of buildings in New York, the choice of Sin City for the latter ad coincided with the twice-impeached former President’s planned rally in Vegas on Friday.
Following Harris’ strong performance at Tuesday’s debate with convicted felon Trump — during which the former reality TV star amplified a false and racist meme claiming that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating dogs and cats — Swift endorsed the Democratic ticket in an impassioned post in which she struck out at fake AI images that appeared to show her endorsing Trump.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” Swift said about the clearly doctored images that Trump re-posted on his Truth social feed. “It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth. I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election.”
The post in which Swift posed with one of her cats, was signed “Childless Cat Lady,” a dig at Trump VP candidate Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2021 demeaning description of Democratic leaders, including stepmother of two Harris, as “childless cat ladies… who want to make the rest of the country miserable.”
Swift’s endorsement on her Instagram feed with 238 million followers and plea for fans to register to vote led to nearly 400,000 people visiting the Vote.gov registration site in the days after Tuesday’s debate.
Trump denied the singer’s possible influence on the neck-and-neck race in an hours-long phone call with Fox & Friends on Wednesday in which he said, “I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” saying he prefers the singer’s friend, Brittany Mahomes, wife of Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, who is teammates with Taylor’s boyfriend, KC tight end Travis Kelce. “She’s a very liberal person. She seems to always endorse a Democrat, and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.
The ads are in keeping with the Harris/Walz campaign’s pinpoint needling of Trump with a barrage of memes and videos on X, as well as their perfectly-timed roll-out of friendship bracelets in their online store reading “Harris-Walz”; the $20-for-two accessories sold out almost immediately. Harris immediately leaned into the Swift endorsement during her post-debate party, where she walked off the stage to Swift’s misogyny-bashing Lover single “The Man.”
Check out the billboards below.
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While former President Donald Trump’s amplification of false claims during Tuesday’s presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are “eating dogs… eating the cats” have been widely debunked and endlessly mocked on social media, Wyclef Jean says it’s not funny and we need to keep our eyes on what’s important in November’s election.
The rapper/producer who was born in Haiti and emigrated to Brooklyn as a child told TMZ on Thursday (Sept. 12) that America’s historic embrace of immigrants is the nation’s “greatest asset.” Though he avoiding the repetition of the rumor spread by Trump and his VP pick, Ohio native JD Vance — which the state’s Republican Governor has said is without merit — ‘Clef stressed that we should all be taking this fall’s vote seriously.
“I will be forever grateful for my family’s life, for having a fair chance to live what is called the ‘American Dream,’” said Wyclef, who posted the TMZ chat on his X feed. “One of our greatest assets in America is that we are a country of immigrants. I speak from the heart when I say, Haitian people living in the U.S. are good neighbors and good people. We care about humanity. We care about our neighbors.”
Trump made the fallacious claim during his first, and seemingly, only debate with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris this week in a moment that instantly became fodder for ridicule and contempt on late night shows and social media. Wyclef, who has long been a proud supporter of his native country, urged his fellow Americans to stop spreading the dangerous rumors.
“On behalf of Haitian Americans, I ask that we stop these racist messages and accusations. Put our hands out in peace and say thanks for being my neighbor,” Wyclef said. “We need to respect one another and vote based on policies and facts, not crazy talk. And we need to shake hands with one another and be thankful we are part of an America for all.”
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine dismissed Trump’s claims in a CBS interview on Wednesday, brushing aside the fake news that first popped up on right-wing social media feeds before being amplified by Vance and other Republicans. “This is something that came up on the internet and the internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” DeWine said, noting that the city’s mayor has confirmed that there is no credible evidence to support the cat- and dog-eating claims.
The rumors appear to have started following an incident in nearby Canton, OH in which a woman was arrested for killing and eating a cat, then further boosted by a photo of a person holding a dead goose that some on social media claimed was of a Haitian resident of Springfield. The video taken in Canton depicts a woman who is not Haitian being arrested for cruelty to companion animals; after being charged with the fifth-degree felony the woman plead not guilty by reason of insanity. The images were picked up and widely distributed by white supremacists, as well as X boss Elon Music and Vance, who has a home 45 minutes away from Springfield in neighboring Cincinnati, OH.
“I think we go with what the mayor says. He knows the city,” DeWine said of the town that has seen a major influx of 12,000-15,000 Haitian immigrants over the past few years that has strained city services, but who the Governor said have filled jobs in the city and work “very, very hard.”
While DeWine did not go so far as to say that the amplification of the rumor that started on a Springfield Facebook group were endangering the city’s Haitian population, U.S. National Security spokesperson John Kirby did deem Vance and Trump’s comments “dangerous.” The racist trope claiming immigrants cook and serve household pets has been used to demean and ostracize migrants for more than a century. In the midst of his third run for the White House, convicted felon Trump, 78 has continued to double-down on the debunked animal-eating claim in appearances this week.
In comments on Tuesday, Kirby said, “What’s deeply concerning to us is you’ve got now elected officials in the Republican Party pushing, you know, yet another conspiracy theory that’s just seeking to divide people based on lies and, let’s be honest, based on an element of racism. This kind of language, this kind of disinformation, is dangerous because there will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is, and they might act on that kind of information and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop.”
Singer, activist and Springfield native John Legend also weighed in on the danger of spreading such hurtful lies in a video posted on his Instagram in which he touched on the rush of Haitian immigrants who’ve moved to his hometown to escape the political turmoil in their native country.
“I think all of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want our ancestors to have when they moved here with our Haitian brothers and sisters who moved here too,” Legend said in a video posted on Thursday. “And nobody’s eating cats. Nobody’s eating dogs. We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment. How about we love one another?”
Legend noted that he grew up in the Christian tradition that encourages everyone to “love our neighbor as we love ourselves and treat strangers as though they might be Christ. So how about we adopt that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving to our communities and don’t spread hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them?”
According to the Huffington Post, Springfield City Hall and other downtown buildings received bomb threats prompting an evacuation on Thursday, with Mayor Rob Rue saying that the threat featured “hateful language” aimed at Haitians and immigrants. In addition, the president of the city’s nonprofit Haitian Community Help and Support Center told NBC News that the recent hateful attention on the city’s Haitian population has them “scared for their lives,” with some residents keeping their children home from school out of fear.
Watch Legend’s video below.
New legislation to protect concert goers from terror attacks at U.K. music venues has been presented in Parliament, following years of campaigning by the mother of Martyn Hett, one of the 22 victims of 2017’s Manchester Arena bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert.
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill, better known as Martyn’s Law, received its first reading in Parliament on Thursday (Sept. 12).
The legislation requires all venues with a capacity of more than 200 to take “appropriate action” to protect concert-goers from harm by having a number of measures in place, including mandatory safety training for staff and plans in place to prevent and protect against terror attacks.
For venues with capacities of more than 800 people, operators are required to draw up comprehensive public protection procedures that set out plans for evacuating people from the premises and moving them to a place where there is a reduced risk of physical harm.
These procedures will need to be regularly updated and assessed by U.K. regulator the Security Industry Authority (SIA), the law states. Large venues will also need to take appropriate steps to reduce their vulnerability to terror attacks by having CCTV monitoring the building and the immediate vicinity, or the hiring of security staff.
In addition, venue operators will be legally required to limit the disclosure of information about their premises that may be “useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.”
Failure to comply with the regulations or a venue providing false information to the SIA can result in fines of up to £18 million ($23.5 million) or 5% of the operator’s annual global revenue, whichever is greater. The maximum fine for a small music venue that holds between 200 and 800 people is capped at £10,000 ($13,000).
The government says the bill’s proportionate and tiered approach, which is linked to the size of the venue and scale of the activity taking place, will ensure that “undue burdens are not placed on small businesses.”
An impact assessment carried out by the Home Office estimates the cost of implementing the new security requirements to be around £300 ($390) per year for small venues and around £5,000 ($6,500) per year for buildings with a capacity of more than 800.
The long-proposed bill was drawn up in response to the suicide bomb attack outside an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017 in which 22 people died and more than 800 people were injured, many of them children.
A public inquiry into the tragedy found that failings by the British security service MI5, local emergency services, Greater Manchester Police and security teams working at the SMG-operated venue meant that multiple opportunities to prevent or minimize the “devastating impact of the attack” were missed.
Figen Murray, the mother of victim Martyn Hett, has led the campaign for tougher security regulations to be put in place for music venues. Earlier this year, she walked 200 miles from Manchester to Downing Street, London, to push for the law to come into force.
“Today means we are one step closer to making public spaces safer for everyone,” Murray said in a statement.
Now that the bill has had its first reading in the House of Commons, it will be debated by MPs, who may propose amendments. It will then proceed to the House of Lords for approval before receiving Royal Ascent and becoming law. The government said that businesses will be given detailed guidance to understand their new obligations and time to implement any changes required.
“This legislation will strengthen public safety, help protect staff and the public from terrorism and ensure we learn the lessons from the terrible Manchester Arena attack and the inquiry that followed,” said the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, in a statement.
Responding to the bill’s progress, Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, praised Figen Murray for her “unwavering dedication” in honor of her son, but said it was crucial that the “balance between heightened security and practical implementation” is carefully considered by MPs.
“Key concerns include the operational impact, skillset required of venue operators and the financial implications of enforcing these new safety protocols,” Kill said. “While the objectives of Martyn’s Law are commendable, it is essential that the legislation is designed with feasibility and fairness in mind.”
The queen of all childless cat ladies finally said her piece on the 2024 presidential election this week, with Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris, denouncing Donald Trump, and dissing JD Vance in one fell swoop — but the Republican VP pick doesn’t think it matters.
In an interview on Fox News’ The Story on Wednesday (Sept. 11), Vance shrugged off the pop star’s dig at his past remarks about Democrats in her post advocating for Harris the night prior — which she signed “Childless Cat Lady” — and dismissed the idea that Swift’s stardom carries much weight in politics. “We admire Taylor Swift’s music,” the Ohio senator began while speaking to host Martha MacCallum, who joked that Swift’s callout would haunt his “dreams and nightmares for years to come.”
“But I don’t think most Americans — whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not — are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity, who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and problems of most Americans,” he continued. “When grocery prices go up by 20%, it hurts most Americans. It doesn’t hurt Taylor Swift.”
“When housing prices become unaffordable, it doesn’t affect Taylor Swift or any other billionaire,” Vance added, sidestepping the irony of his running mate also being a billionaire celebrity before crossing over into politics in 2016.
Vance did not, however, touch on the “Anti-Hero” singer’s complaint about the Trump campaign using AI-generated images of her in August that falsely portrayed her as a MAGA supporter. In her post endorsing Harris, Swift cited the trespass as one of the main reasons she wanted to speak out about her stance in the 2024 election.
“It really conjured up my fears around AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” the 14-time Grammy winner wrote in her endorsement, which she shared moments after Harris and Trump’s ABC News debate Tuesday (Sept. 10). “The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth.”
“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift added. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. … I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
In the hours following the superstar’s post, Harris played Swift’s “The Man” at a post-debate gathering and Democratic VP pick Tim Walz gushed about Swift “as a fellow cat owner” in an interview. Plus, the duo’s campaign began selling Eras-Tour-inspired friendship bracelets online, quickly selling out.
Trump also had something to say about Swift’s post. “I was not a Taylor Swift fan,” he said on Fox & Friends. “It was just a question of time … she’s a very liberal person, she seems to always endorse a Democrat and she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace.”
Pop superstar Taylor Swift made it abundantly clear to her followers who she will be voting for in November, and conservative pundit Megyn Kelly is refusing to “Shake It Off.”
In the newest episode of her YouTube series The Megyn Kelly Show, the former Fox News host harshly criticized Swift for supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency this November. Reading out Swift’s full statement posted to her Instagram, Kelly immediately impugned the singer’s character and spread misinformation surrounding some of Harris and Gov. Tim Walz’s proposed policies.
“I’m allowed to criticize Taylor Swift, and I don’t give a sh– who gets upset. This is disgusting,” she said. “If she wants to vote Harris-Walz, she can do it all she wants but to say the reason she is doing it is because of Tim Walz’s stance on LGBTQ? F you, Taylor Swift. And F all of the people who want to see these children have body parts chopped off and watch them sterilized under the age of consent and then will ride off to their multi-gazillion-dollar mansions.”
The conservative host then included Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce in her criticism (despite the fact that Kelce has yet to publicly endorse a candidate in the election), calling the couple the “epitomes of elite snobs” before claiming that the two are not in touch with politics.
“They both have gazillions of dollars,” she said, before adding in anti-vaccine sentiment to the mix. “She doesn’t care what happens to these kids, just like he [Kelce] doesn’t give a sh– what happens to all the young men who take the Pfizer booster he’s been pushing on them.”
Billboard has reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment.
Kelly had previously criticized Kelce for posting an advertisement with Pfizer, where the tight end encouraged fans to get their COVID-19 booster shots. The host claimed that COVID-19 vaccines put youth at greater risk for myocarditis — the CDC, though, says that those who contract COVID-19 are far more likely to contract myocarditis, and that “myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination is rare.”
Kelly’s complaint about children having “body parts chopped off” is part of a larger GOP trend of advocating against gender-affirming care for transgender youth. While many pundits and politicians (including former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump) claim that this kind of care involves children routinely having their genitals operated on, experts in the field say surgical intervention is not recommended for minors.
“Genital reconstruction surgery is typically reserved for adults,” Dr. Joshua D. Safer, MD, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, explained to Billboard in 2022. “Prior to any gender-affirming medical or surgical intervention, all minors must have an intake with a knowledgeable mental health provider internal to our system. Once deemed ready for a medical/surgical intervention, the processes we have for adults are then brought into play.”
In her endorsement of Harris, Swift praised the vice president as a “steady-handed, gifted leader” who “fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.” She added that she was “heartened” by Gov. Walz, thanks to his decades-long support for “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body.
See Megyn Kelly’s rant below:
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Justin Timberlake is moving forward with a plea deal to resolve his drunk driving case, according to the Associated Press.
Three months after he was arrested on suspicion of driving a vehicle while intoxicated in the Hamptons, the news site reports that the 43-year-old superstar will plead guilty to a less serious offense than he was initially charged with this Friday (Sept. 13). Officials have already confirmed that he’s set to appear in Sag Harbor Village Court on that date to enter his plea.
Billboard has reached out to Timberlake’s rep for comment. His lawyer, Ed Burke, was unable to comment at press time.
The news comes a little over a month after the *NSYNC alum pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor drunken driving charge in an August virtual court appearance, where his driving privileges were suspended by Sag Harbor Village Justice Carl Irace. CNN also reported at the time that the judge had admonished Burke for comments the attorney made to the media about the case ahead of the arraignment.
The newly set plea deal will aim to wrap up Timberlake’s DWI case, which began June 17 after police reported witnessing him “failing to stop at a duly posted stop sign and failing to maintain his lane of travel” while operating a 2025 BMW in New York. The arresting officer added in a court filing that “the defendant was operating said vehicle in an intoxicated condition in that his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests.”
Officer Michael Arkinson also noted that the 10-time Grammy winner had told him during the arrest, “I had one martini and I followed my friends home.”
Despite the police reports, Timberlake’s lawyer has disputed that his client was drunk at all at the time of the arrest. During a hearing in July, Burke insisted that the “SexyBack” singer should have never been arrested, saying, “the police made a number of very significant errors in this case.”
Timberlake was midway through his Forget Tomorrow World Tour when he was arrested. Even so, the trek has largely gone off without a hitch, with the performer going on to perform in Chicago, New York City and more locations across the U.S. this summer before embarking on a European leg in July. The full run is currently on track to gross more than $250 million over 87 dates, according to Billboard Boxscore data.
Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks look like Harris-Walz supporters in this light, and Democrats are loving it.
Shortly after the “Anti-Hero” singer broke her silence on the 2024 presidential election with a post in support of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz’s campaign for the White House, the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman followed in her footsteps and endorsed the VP as well Wednesday (Sept. 11). “As my friend @taylorswift so eloquently stated, now is the time to research and choose the candidate that speaks to you and your beliefs,” Nicks wrote on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself with her tiny canine.
“Only 54 days left until the election,” she continued. “Make sure you are registered to vote! Your vote in this election may be one of the most important things you ever do.”
Similar to Swift, who signed her own endorsement “Childless Cat Lady” — a dig at Democrats previously made by Donald Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance — Nicks stamped her post with “Childless Dog Lady.”
The “Edge of Seventeen” singer’s message comes amid a whirlwind 24 hours for the Harris-Walz campaign, which saw Harris debate Trump for the first time on Tuesday (Sept. 10). Shortly afterward, Swift gave her highly anticipated seal of approval on Instagram, writing that she was supporting the former prosecutor because “she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them.”
“I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” Swift added at the time. “I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
After going head-to-head with Trump, Harris played the 14-time Grammy winner’s “The Man” at a post-debate gathering, Walz gushed about Swift “as a fellow cat owner” in an interview and the Democratic duo began selling Eras-Tour-inspired friendship bracelets on the campaign’s website.
Swift and Nicks famously performed together on the Grammy telecast in 2010. They have seemingly grown closer over the past few years, with Swift giving the rock legend a shout-out on her The Tortured Poets Department track “Clara Bow.” Nicks, who penned a poem specially for the physical copies of Swift’s Billboard 200-topping album, has also said on more than one occasion that the younger star’s Midnights anthem “You’re on Your Own, Kid” has helped her grieve late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie.
See Nicks’ endorsement of Harris below.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing yet another abuse lawsuit, this time filed by a participant on MTV’s Making the Band and longtime member of his band who says he harassed and assaulted her during “years of inhumane working conditions.”
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, Dawn Richard says the embattled hip hop mogul “manipulated” her into thinking that “abuse and exploitation were required for female artists to succeed in the music industry.”
Richard claims she witnessed Combs abuse his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura on multiple occasions – and that recent lawsuits from Ventura and others sparked her to speak out.
“As more women courageously come forward, plaintiff has been empowered by this collective strength and now adds her voice to the growing chorus of victims bravely sharing their harrowing stories,” lawyers for Richard write. “Together, they seek justice and stand in solidarity, as the latest victims of the #Me Too movement in the music industry.”
Once one of the most powerful men in the music industry, Diddy has been hit with at least eight civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse over the past year, including claims by Ventura that were later followed by a video showing him assaulting her. The hip-hop mogul is also facing an apparent federal criminal investigation after authorities raided his homes in March.
Though the rapper has denied the legal allegations against him, he issued an apology in May over his conduct captured on the video of the Ventura attack: “My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video.”
In her new lawsuit, Richard says she first met Combs after she was selected for season 3 of Making The Band, a popular MTV reality show in the early 2000s featuring aspiring artists working under the tutelage of Combs.
She was eventually chosen as a winner of that season and joined the Diddy-run girl group Danity Kane, which released albums two albums in the late 2000s. When the band broke up in 2009, Richard says she transitioned into a member of another band called Diddy – Dirty Money.
During each stop in the Diddy universe, Richard says she was subjected to harmful behavior. While filming the TV show, she says Combs “deprived Ms. Richard and her Danity Kane bandmates of basic needs such as adequate food and sleep.” As a member of Dirty Money, he says the mogul repeatedly harassed and assaulted her, including groping her during fitting sessions.
Richard also claims to have witnessed illegal behavior toward others, including a 2009 party in Atlanta after the Soul Train Awards in which she says she was Combs “arranged for dozens of young women and girls — some of whom appeared to be underage – to be transported to the party.”
“Many of them appeared lethargic or passed out while Mr. Combs and his guests performed sexual acts on them,” Richard’s lawyers write. “Ms. Richard felt shocked and horrified at the sight of Mr. Combs and his guests violating incapacitated young women.”
She also claims to have seen specific acts of abuse toward Combs’ ex-partners. In one, she says she witnessed his ex-wife, Kim Porter, leaving his studio “in tears with visible facial injuries including a lacerated lip.” On “numerous” other occasions, Richard says she saw Combs abuse “brutally beat” Ventura.
“His persistent abuse included choking and strangling Ms. Ventura, striking her with his hands and with objects, slapping her, punching her, and throwing items at her, including a scalding hot pan,” attorneys for Richards write.
Ventura sued Combs over similar allegations in November, but the pair reached a settlement to end the lawsuit just days later.
In technical terms, Richard is accusing Combs of a slew of specific forms of wrongdoing, including violating New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act and California’s Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, as well as various state and federal workplace protections against sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation. She’s also accusing him of assault, sexual battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit also features intellectual property claims, including that Diddy infringed copyrights to her music.
A representative for Combs did not immediately return a request for comment.
Former president Donald Trump said a lot of outlandish (and demonstrably untrue) things during his Tuesday night (Sept. 10) presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, from claiming people were aborting babies after they’re born to saying immigrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]