sexual assault
Page: 2
Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the hip-hop mogul sexually assaulted her in a recording studio bathroom in 2003.
According to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York by attorneys Michelle Caiola and Jonathan Goldhirsch, Crystal McKinney claims she met Combs at a Men’s Fashion Week dinner in Manhattan on the invite of a fashion designer she knew. While attending the dinner, during which she alleges that Combs came onto her “in a sexually suggestive manner,” she says he invited her to hang out at his recording studio.
After arriving at the studio, where McKinney says several other men were present, she claims she was given alcohol and a marijuana joint that she later came to believe was laced “with a narcotic or other intoxicating substance.” She says Combs then led her to a bathroom, where he began kissing her without her consent before shoving her head in his crotch and forcing her to perform oral sex over her protests.
McKinney, who was then working as a professional model, claims that she later “awakened in shock” to find herself in a taxi heading back to the apartment of the designer who had invited her to the dinner. At this point, she “realized that she had been sexually assaulted by Combs,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit adds that following the alleged assault, McKinney’s “modeling opportunities quickly began to dwindle and then evaporated entirely” after Combs allegedly “blackballed” her in the industry. After falling into “a tailspin of anxiety and depression,” she claims she attempted suicide in 2004 and later fell into drug and alcohol addiction to cope with the trauma of the alleged assault.
The new lawsuit was filed under the NYC Gender Motivated Violence Act, which created a two-year lookback window beginning in March 2023 that allows survivors of gender-motivated violence to sue their abusers for alleged incidents that occurred outside the statute of limitations.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Combs’ label Bad Boy Records, its parent company Universal Music Group and Combs’ clothing company Sean John Clothing, all of which McKinney claims “enabled” the alleged assault by “actively maintaining and employing Combs in a position of power” despite the fact that they allegedly “knew or should have known that Combs posed a risk of sexual assault.”
McKinney is asking for damages for mental and emotional injury, distress, pain and suffering and injury to her reputation as well as punitive damages, among other relief.
Representatives for Combs, Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean John Clothing and Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Tuesday’s complaint marks the sixth sexual misconduct lawsuit to have been filed against Combs over the past several months. The torrent of lawsuits was kicked off by a November 2023 complaint filed by his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who alleged repeated abuse by the mogul over the course of more than a decade.
Though Ventura’s lawsuit was settled just one day later, a 2016 security video published by CNN on Friday (May 17) showed Combs physically assaulting Ventura in a hotel hallway. Though Combs denied all of Ventura’s initial allegations, in the wake of the video’s release he issued an apology calling his behavior in the clip “inexcusable.” L.A. District Attorney George Gascón later released a statement saying that Combs could not be prosecuted over the assault due to the statute of limitations.
Combs has strongly denied all allegations of sexual assault made against him. On Dec. 6, he released a statement that read: “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
In November, Combs stepped down as chairman of his digital media company Revolt before reportedly selling his stake in the company in March. Also in March, federal agents conducted raids of Combs’ L.A. and Miami homes “in connection” with a federal sex trafficking investigation, according to CNN.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Prince Williams / Getty
A former bodyguard for Diddy is speaking out once more, claiming that he saw the mogul assault his exes repeatedly.
As reactions to Diddy’s purported apology video over beating former girlfriend Cassie Ventura continue to pour in, his former bodyguard Roger Bonds is now speaking out again about what he alleges were acts of abuse inflicted on Ventura and the late Kim Porter. Bonds appeared on the latest episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday (May 20) to talk about what he witnessed.
“It didn’t surprise me when I saw it because I’ve seen things of this nature before,” Bonds said about three minutes into the interview. “I’ve gotten in between things of this nature before. This was back in 2012.”
[embedded content]
“He’s up to the same games,” Bonds continued. “He never mentioned Cassie’s name in that apology, so to me he didn’t Ahumble himself enough. I think he said what people wanted to hear, not what he felt.” When Morgan asked him how many times had he witnessed Diddy aka Sean Combs act in that manner towards women, Bonds answered, “Around four or five times. I’ve seen him get really physical, grab them up,” Bonds added. “I seen him get into wrestling and punching matches. Sometimes, I felt like what are you upset about? It’s a deeper anger when you are hitting and punching a woman in that type of manner.”
Bonds would remark on Diddy’s personality in the interview. “He’s a king manipulator,” he stated. “He can manipulate anything and anyone. Money and power is what he’s all about. he has a god syndrome.” Bonds would also talk about Kim Porter fighting back against the Bad Boy Records founder’s attacks, and how he wanted Bonds to ignore his actions. “There was this dark side of him that he was trying to hide and that he wanted me to say didn’t exist. And I can’t say that it didn’t exist if it did exist,” Bonds said.
Diddy has been under intense scrutiny as there are now two lawsuits filed against him for sexual assault, in addition to dealing with a federal raid on his homes in Miami and Los Angeles. But Bonds feels like this is just the beginning. “I feel like there’s going to be other people that come forward,” he said.
Bonds was named in the lawsuit that Cassie filed against Diddy, which was settled a day later, in late 2023.
Check out the full interview above.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Mike Coppola / Getty
Famed artist Kehinde Wiley has been accused of sexual assault by another artist, with Wiley denying the incidents.
According to reports, the award-winning painter Kehinde Wiley has been accused of sexual assault. The claims come from Joseph Awuah-Darko, a British-born Ghanaian artist and the founder of the Noldor Artist Residency in Ghana. Awuah-Darko made the claims in a post on Instagram that he made on Sunday (May 19). “I hope my words and openness about my painful experience empower others to come forward,” Awuah-Darko wrote in the caption. “I hope all that unravels creates a path towards not only accountability, but recompense and collective healing for other victims.”
Awuah-Darko said that Wiley sexually assaulted him twice while the two were at a dinner held by the Ghana Creative Arts Council at the Noldor Artists Residency in 2021. “The act was categorically unwelcome and unprovoked,” he wrote, stating that the first incident occurred within two hours of them being at the dinner. “The second [italics by the artist) assault was much more severe and violent.” Awuah-Darko didn’t describe the second assault, but went on to say that it took him time to “confront the reality of my abuse as such.” He also stated that he would be seeking legal action against Wiley, but acknowledged in an email to the New York Times that given the passage of a new law imposing jail on LGBTQ individuals in Ghana, it may not be received well.
Wiley has firmly denied the accusations from Awuah-Darko. “Someone I had a brief, consensual relationship with is now making false, disturbing, and defamatory accusations about our time together,” he wrote in part in his own Instagram post. “I kindly ask for privacy as I work to clear my name.” The 48-year-old artist forwarded a copy of a cease and desist letter he sent to Awuah-Darko to the Times in addition to an email where he said that Awuah-Darko had “been trying to be part of my life ever since we met.”
A Los Angeles judge has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee of sexually assaulting a woman in a helicopter in 2003, ruling that her case was filed too late.
The case against Lee, launched last year by an anonymous Jane Doe accuser, was filed under a newly enacted California law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for years-old sexual assaults – one of several such laws passed around the country in recent years.
But in a decision issued Monday, Judge Holly J. Fujie ruled that Lee’s accuser had failed to show that Lee’s alleged assault had been followed by any kind of “cover-up” – a key requirement under the provision she cited.
Trending on Billboard
“The court finds that plaintiff has not pled facts sufficient to support the theory of the necessary ‘cover up’ because plaintiff has not asserted facts evidencing defendants’ concerted effort to hide evidence relating to sexual assault,” the judge wrote. “Plaintiff instead makes vague allegations that the court finds insufficient to support the revival of a claim.”
Though the ruling is a setback for Lee’s accuser, the case is not yet over. The judge gave her and her attorneys 20 days to file an updated version of her complaint if she has additional information that would fix the flaws in her case. Her attorneys did not immediately return a request for comment.
In her December complaint, the Jane Doe plaintiff claimed she had been “lured under false pretenses” by Lee’s personal helicopter pilot into taking a ride from San Diego to Los Angeles in February 2003. Once onboard, she claimed that Lee and the pilot “consumed several alcoholic beverages, smoked marijuana, and snorted cocaine” before the rock star assaulted her.
“Tommy Lee then proceeded to sexually assault plaintiff by forcibly groping, kissing, penetrating her with his fingers, and attempting to force her to perform oral copulation,” her lawyers wrote. “As a result of Tommy Lee’s sexual assault, Plaintiff has suffered severe emotional, physical, and psychological distress.”
The case, over an incident that allegedly occurred more than two decades ago, was filed under the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act – a California law that created a three-year window starting last year for alleged survivors to file sexual assault lawsuits that would normally be barred by the statute of limitations.
The case against Lee was one of many cases filed during the “look-back windows” created by similar statutes, including New York’s Adult Survivors Act. Just before that law expired in November, a flood of years-old abuse cases hit the courts, most notably against Sean “Diddy” Combs.
But such laws have strict requirements. In the case of the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act, an alleged victim must show that the defendant “engaged in a cover up or attempted a cover up,” meaning a “concerted effort to hide evidence relating to a sexual assault or other inappropriate conduct” or conduct that “incentivizes individuals to remain silent.”
In her complaint, Lee’s accuser claimed that the drummer and other defendants “engaged in a concerted effort to prevent information or evidence of such sexual assaults from being made public or disclosed to anyone.” But in her ruling on Monday, Judge Fujie said that simply spelling out the statute’s requirement was not enough.
“These allegations are conclusory in nature and do not allege specific actions directed to plaintiff,” the judge wrote. “As such, plaintiff’s action as alleged is effectively time-barred.”
In a statement to Billboard, Lee’s attorney Sasha Frid said: “We applaud the court’s decision. The court got it right in finding that the plaintiff cannot assert a claim against Tommy Lee. From the outset, Mr. Lee has vehemently denied these false and bogus accusations.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Bad Boy Records / Bad Boy
Lawyers for Diddy rebuked a woman’s lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault and filed a motion to dismiss elements of it.
Last Friday (April 26), the legal team for Diddy filed a motion in a New York court to dismiss parts of a sexual assault lawsuit filed against him, stating that the allegations “were brought under statutes that did not exist at the time the alleged misconduct occurred.” The legal documents explicitly point to the charges of revenge porn and human trafficking that should be dismissed outright by the court as they were not in existence at the time of the allegation. The New York State Revenge Porn Law was codified in 2019, and the New York Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Law which went into effect in 2007 were among those cited by the attorneys.
Continuing on that front, the attorneys also state that the lawsuit’s claims against Bad Boy Entertainment and Combs Enterprises who are named as company defendants in the suit “fail as a matter of law” because neither entity was “in existence at the time of the alleged conduct.” The filing also claims that the lawsuit’s allegations were “false, offensive, and salacious.” The lawsuit was filed against Diddy, aka Sean Combs, last November with the Manhattan Supreme Court. It occurred a day before the expiration of the New York State Survivors Act, within the same time frame that Diddy’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura also filed her lawsuit against the mogul alleging sexual abuse. That suit was settled the following day.
The victim, Joi Dickerson-Neal, first alleged that the Bad Boy Records founder sexually assaulted her when she was a student at Syracuse University in 1991. Dickerson-Neal claims that he “intentionally drugged” her after dinner at a restaurant in Harlem, then drove her to a recording studio where she stated she was “in a physical state where she could not independently stand or walk.” Diddy then took her to his place, where she says she was sexually assaulted. The lawsuit then says that he filmed the incident, and a male friend of hers “viewed the ‘sex tape’ along with other men.” Her lawyer, Jonathan Goldhirsch, said at the time of the filing that it did “severe harm to Ms. Dickerson-Neal’s reputation, career prospects, and emotional well-being,”
Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs pushed back against a woman’s lawsuit that accused him of sexual assault, filing a motion on Friday (April 26) to dismiss some claims that were not under law when the alleged incident occurred.
The motion filed in a New York court claims Combs cannot be sued because certain laws didn’t exist when Joi Dickerson-Deal made the allegations against him in 1991.
The music mogul’s lawyers want certain statues from Dickerson-Deal’s claims such as revenge porn and human trafficking to be dismissed with prejudice.
In a filing last year, she said Combs “intentionally drugged” her then brought her home and sexually assaulted her after a date in Harlem when she was a 19-year-old college student.
Trending on Billboard
Without her knowledge, Combs videotaped the assault and later shared it with several friends in the music industry, the suit alleges. He denied the allegations, accusing her of seeking to exploit the New York law that temporarily extended the statute of limitations.
Dickerson-Deal’s claim came nearly three decades after his alleged misconduct and the New York State Revenge Porn Law was not codified until 2019, Combs’ lawyers said.
His attorneys also pointed out a few others including the New York Services for Victims of Human Trafficking Law, which came into effect in 2007.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Dickerson has done.
Last month, Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami were raided by federal authorities in a sex trafficking investigation. The criminal investigation is a major escalation in the scrutiny of Combs, who has been the defendant in several recent sexual abuse lawsuits.
In a lawsuit Combs settled the day after it was filed in November, his former protege and girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, sued him alleging years of sexual abuse, including rape. The lawsuit said he forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed them.
In February, a music producer filed a lawsuit alleging Combs coerced him to solicit prostitutes and pressured him to have sex with them.
Another of Combs’ accusers was a woman who said he raped her two decades ago when she was 17.
Combs and his attorneys have denied all of the allegations in the lawsuits.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty / Diddy
The boisterous mogul has been understandably S I L E N T following waves of sexual assault allegations, but with his latest post on IG, he could have possibly made his loudest statement yet.
Diddy’s life has been turned upside down after his ex-longtime girlfriend, singer/model Cassie Ventura, slapped him with a sexual assault lawsuit with eye-brow-raising accusations, opening the floodgates.
He did quickly settle with the “Me & U” singer, but that didn’t stop other alleged victims from coming out and accusing the music mogul of some disgusting behavior that has also swept up a lot of people in his orbit, including his son, Christian Combs who is now the target of a sexual assault.
Two days ago, the 54-year-old Bad Boy CEO shared a full-length clip from his 1998 single “Victory,” showing him ironically running from the law with the caption, “Bad Boy For Life.”
Variety reports that the post received over 200,000 likes since he shared it and features numerous shows of support from some celebrity friends, including his son.
Per Variety:
The comments were left open, and Christian Combs, who is reportedly being sued by a woman for sexual assault in 2022 — wrote “Who you know do it better!!” with three fire emojis. Multiple mid-level artists — including Ginuwine and Lil Scrappy, also weighed in with support. The clip was posted in both his Instagram story and as a stand-alone post; as of Saturday morning it had reached 200,000 likes.
This post marks the first time in a while since the accusations hit that Diddy has left the comment section on one of his posts open.
The Saga Continues For Diddy
He has also been popping up randomly around Miami following the raid on his homes and constant trolling from his longtime nemesis, 50 Cent, who has also been indirectly involved in the mess being that his baby mama, Daphne Joy, was named as an alleged “sex worker” in a lawsuit from producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones.
Joy clapped back at the G-Unit general, accusing him of rape and being an absent father after the “Wanksta” crafter said he was going to file for full custody of the former couple’s 11-year-old son, Sire Jackson.
The rapper, born Curtis Jackson, denies Joy’s claims.
In his latest trolling of Diddy, he used the new “pause” replacement, “No P.Diddy,” during his set at the Dreamville music festival.
Never change Fif.
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
If social media has taught us anything in the last decade and more, it’s that there are a lot of creeps and weirdos out here on all sides. A woman on X had to protect her account after essentially cosigning sexual assault and homophobia in a two-for-one tweet, prompting others to call her She Diddy.
She Diddy began trending early Thursday (April 4) morning after X user @themdolll tweeted some thoughts that somehow got connected to some other recent happenings involving Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The tweet, which X user @ScamFisher screengrabbed, reads as follows:
once i reach fa that dic & you move my hand u can get tf on gay ass ngga
X user @FirstName_Alan quoted @themdolll’s tweet, writing in the quotes, “It’s called consent She Diddy” and all hell broke loose from there.
Since that exchange, She Diddy has gone viral, seeing Combs’ nickname repurposed once again in an unfortunate fashion. In recent times, the phrase “No Diddy” has cropped up which seemingly has a homophobic bent although it appears it isn’t dominating the conversations of late.
As it stands, fans and onlookers are more aware than ever of the specter of sexual assault in the wake of Diddy’s recent legal issues. Further, it’s revealed that some people have some zany views about consent, assault, sexuality, and conduct. Adding to this, Diddy has his fair share of defenders along with those who wish to see his downfall in connection to the mounting allegations he faces.
Perhaps not wanting that image on her jacket, @themdolll has since made her X page private so we don’t know if there have been any other statements or responses to her earlier quip.
Check out the reactions under the X trending topic She Diddy below.
—
Photo: Prostock-Studio / Getty
Sean “Diddy” Combs has reportedly agreed to a deal to sell his stake in Revolt TV after stepping down from his role as chairman in November amid sexual assault allegations.
According to TMZ, Combs sold his remaining shares of Revolt to an anonymous buyer. The report notes that the company will remain Black-owned. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Revolt TV’s new owner is reported to be keeping their identity hidden for the next few weeks but will eventually have a formal introduction as the head of the media company at a later date.
Trending on Billboard
The deal was reportedly finalized this week; Revolt’s current CEO, Detavio Samuels, and chief brand officer, Deon Graham, will remain in their roles for the time being.
The news broke as Combs’ Miami and Los Angeles homes were reportedly raided by federal agents on Monday (March 25). The raids were executed by Homeland Security “in connection” with an ongoing federal sex trafficking investigation, according to reports.
TMZ reported on Monday that Homeland Security of New York launched an ongoing investigation linked to Combs and that the case is being handled out of the Southern District of New York.
With officers swarming the Los Angeles property, video footage appeared to show individuals being detained, two of whom appeared to be Diddy’s sons, King Combs and Justin Combs. It’s unknown whether the elder Combs was at either home during the raids.
Combs has been the subject of numerous sexual assault-related civil lawsuits over the past several months. Ex-girlfriend Cassie lit the fuse in November 2023 when she filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of physical abuse and repeated sexual assault while they were dating. The two parties agreed to settle the lawsuit less than 24 hours later.
Later in November, after being accused of sexual abuse by two more women, Combs stepped down as chairman of Revolt, which he helped launch in 2013. In the months since, he has been accused of sexual assault in two additional lawsuits: one filed by a Jane Doe who claimed he “sex trafficked” and “gang raped” her and another by a music producer who allegedly worked with Combs on his 2023 album, The Love Album: Off the Grid.
The Bad Boy CEO has denied any wrongdoing and attempted to clear his name with a post on social media in December.
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” Combs wrote at the time. “For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
Billboard has reached out to representatives for Combs for comment on this story.
R. Kelly’s attorney on Monday (Mar. 18) urged a federal appeals court to overturn the singer’s sexual abuse convictions, warning that the case against Kelly stretched federal racketeering laws “to the point of absurdity” and could potentially turn college fraternities into illegal conspiracies.
At a hearing before the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, lawyer Jennifer Bonjean told a panel of judges that Kelly’s employees had just been “unwitting” staffers performing “anodyne” tasks for a famous person, not a group with a criminal “purpose” like the Mafia or a drug cartel.
Seeking to reverse Kelly’s conviction under the federal RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), Bonjean accused prosecutors of using that law in a “preposterous” new way.
Trending on Billboard
“The government has extended the RICO statute to a set of circumstances that is so beyond what the framers intended, which was to get at organized crime,” Bonjean said. “Now, we’re talking about an organization with an alleged criminal, but not organized crime.”
After decades of accusations of sexual misconduct, Kelly was convicted in September 2021 on nine RICO counts related to accusations that the singer had orchestrated a long-running scheme to recruit and abuse women and underage girls. In 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
At Monday’s hearing, Bonjean repeatedly told the judges that the government had failed to prove that members of Kelly’s organization knew crimes were being committed, meaning the RICO law didn’t apply. She said, for instance, that staffers didn’t know any of the women were underage.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla Crews Bensing, arguing back for the government, sharply rejected that claim: “The defendant had a system in place that lured young people into his orbit and then took over their lives,” she told the judges.
Bensing pointed to specific evidence that members of Kelly’s organization had been aware of the organization’s ill intent. She cited testimony that one victim had been approached by a member of Kelly’s entourage at a McDonalds, that she told him that she was only 16 years old and that he had then given her Kelly’s number and told her to call him. Another Kelly employee testified that he had answered phones for “Kelly’s girlfriends,” Bensing said, some of whom he identified as “mid-aged teenagers.”
“This is all evidence that the jury was entitled to infer that Kelly’s inner circle knew what was going on: that he was recruiting and maintaining underage women for sexual activity,” Bensing said.
Kelly faces long odds in his battle to topple his conviction, as federal appeals courts only overturn a small percentage of the convictions that are appealed each year. But Bonjean has had success in such cases in the past, most notably winning a 2021 ruling that overturned Bill Cosby’s 2018 sex assault conviction.
Following Monday’s arguments, the court will issue a ruling in the coming months.
Like in many appeals, large parts of Monday’s hearing were spent wrangling over in-the-weeds legal issues, like whether a single sexual act could fit the definition of “forced labor” under federal law, or whether Bonjean even had a procedurally proper way to fight her appeal since Kelly’s previous attorneys had failed to challenge the instructions given to the jury at trial.
On her main point about whether RICO requires an illicit “purpose,” Bonjean repeatedly faced pushback from the judges. The judges pointed out on multiple occasions that there is no written requirement that the law only be used against outright criminal organizations, and one judge specifically noted that labor unions had been repeatedly charged with violating RICO.
“RICO is looking at organizations, that are then used to commit criminal acts,” Judge Denny Chin said. “It doesn’t have to be a criminal organization. It could be a completely legitimate organization. But if it engages in racketeering activity, it violates RICO.”
But Bonjean remained adamant, arguing that the statute could not be brought to bear against an organization like Kelly’s, which she said merely had the purpose of promoting his musical career and personal brand.
“This was not a collection of people who had a purpose to recruit girls for sexual abuse,” Bonjean said. “Whether they turned a blind eye, whether some of them suspected that some of these girls were underage, that’s a whole different matter.”
“Once we get into that sort of territory, where we’re going say that that constitutes a RICO enterprise, we have a lot of organizations, we have a lot of frat houses, we have all types of organizations that are now going to become RICO enterprises,” Bonjean added.
Pushing the point further, Bonjean said that such an approach would have allowed federal prosecutors to charge infamous Ponzi scheme perpetraor Bernie Madoff with RICO violations rather than the slew of fraud charges he actually faced. At that point, Judge Richard J. Sullivan cut in.
“Well, he got 150 years,” Sullivan said. “I don’t think that it mattered.”