This article references sexual abuse, gang rape, and domestic abuse.
As Diddy sits in jail after his September 16 arrest, more details and sources are coming to light about what, exactly, he allegedly did and facilitated. The indictment against him, which was unsealed on September 17, revealed that Combs was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering.
Sexual assault and abuse allegations against Sean Combs, better known to music fans as Diddy, first came to light when his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit against him in November 2023. The allegations became front-page news in March 2024, when two of his homes were raided as part of an ongoing human trafficking investigation, according to CNN.
Here is a timeline of everything we know so far about the Diddy assault allegations.
May 13, 2025: Ventura takes the witness stand. Per the Associated Press, Ventura was emotional during her testimony, often pausing to compose herself. She was also visibly pregnant.
Recounting her life with the rapper, Ventura told jurors that she and Combs had some good times as well as arguments and physical altercations. Describing their violent encounters, Ventura said that Combs would allegedly stomp, kick, and drag her while she was down.
“If they were violent arguments, it would usually result in some sort of physical abuse and dragging, just different things,” she said, according to the AP. When asked how often things would turn physical, Ventura answered, “Too frequently.”
“Sean controlled a lot of my life, whether it was career, the way I dressed, everything, everything,” Ventura told jurors. Combs paid for her apartments, she added, and would often drop by unannounced. “I just didn’t have much say in it at the time.”
“Sean is a really polarising person, also really charming,” Ventura said, per AP. “It’s hard to really be able to decide in that moment what you need when he’s telling you what he wants. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know what would happen.” The smallest perceived slights — like “making the wrong face” — she said, could result in violence.
May 12, 2025: With the jury selected, a first witness takes the stand: LAPD officer Israel Florez, who previously worked security at a Los Angeles hotel where, in March 2016, he responded to a call about a woman in distress and had an encounter with Combs. Per the AP, prosecutors showed the court videos related to the alleged attack on Ventura; Florez testified that he recorded a security video on his cell phone because he wanted to relay the incident to his wife and feared she would not believe him.
Florez further testified that he witnessed Combs telling Ventura that she was not allowed to leave their hotel room, and that Combs offered him money to keep quiet about the incident.
A second witness took the stand: Daniel Phillip, a male stripper who encountered Combs and Ventura at a hotel in 2012. He described multiple occasions on which he was paid to have sex with Ventura while Combs watched.
Earlier in the day, the jury heard opening statements from both sides. The defence put forth the theory that the accusers fabricated their stories in an effort to get a payout, and that the evidence shows a pattern of domestic violence, but not sex trafficking or racketeering. The prosecution said that violence is how Combs kept victims of his schemes “in line.”
May 5, 2025: The Diddy trial officially begins with day one of jury selection. According to reports, up to 150 potential jurors were to be brought into a Manhattan courtroom one by one and questioned by Judge Arun Subramanian. Then the prosecution and defence teams would determine whether each person qualified to serve on Combs’s jury. According to USA Today, the goal was to get through all potential jurors in three days.
October 21, 2024: News of five new civil lawsuits filed against Diddy are reported by Sky News. The five new accusers remain anonymous. Two are men and three are women, including one who claims Diddy raped her when she was just 13 years old. The lawsuits also include allegations that Diddy drugged four of the five claimants.
October 1, 2024: Tony Buzbee, a lawyer from Houston, announces he is representing 120 different claimants — 60 male and 60 female accusers. He claims that 25 of these accusers were children at the time of the alleged offences by Diddy.
“This type of sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation should never happen in the United States or anywhere else,” said Buzbee at a news conference. "This should have never been allowed to go on for so long. This conduct has created a mass of individuals who are injured, scared and scarred."
September 24, 2024: The four children Diddy shared with his late ex-girlfriend Kim Porter—Quincy Brown, Christian Combs, and Jessie and D'Lila Combs—refuted conspiracy theories about their mother in a joint statement posted to Instagram. “We have seen so many hurtful and false rumors circulating about our parents, Kim Porter and Sean Combs's relationship, as well as about our mom's tragic passing,” they wrote. The statement denies the rumours that Porter wrote a “memoir,” and reiterates that her death was natural.
September 21, 2024: All week, the internet dug up old pictures and clips that seem to back up the allegations against Diddy. In a particularly uncomfortable video, he detailed his party tips to Conan O’Brien. At one point, he suggested that in addition to alcohol and ladies, one needs “locks on the doors.”
He also made questionable comments in a video with a then-underage Justin Bieber.
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September 18, 2024: Diddy was repeatedly denied bail as his lawyer offered ever more elaborate guarantees to assuage the judge’s fears of potential witness tampering. His lawyers offered to restrict the rapper to his home and only allow family to visit, as well as a $50 million bond and weekly drug testing, among other ideas, per CNN.
His next court appearance is scheduled for October 9, when his lawyer will again appeal the ruling. Until then, he is being held at the Special Housing Unit in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
September 17, 2024: After the indictment against Combs was unsealed, journalists quickly pulled out the most salacious details. Per Page Six, the indictment includes detailed descriptions of drug-fuelled sex parties and other activities allegedly hosted by Combs on his property. The indictment alleged that Combs would force women into lengthy sexual sessions with male sex workers while he recorded the encounters (to be used as blackmail against victims to keep them from coming forward) and pleasured himself. He called these sessions “Freak Offs.”
“Freak Offs were elaborate and produced sex performances that Combs arranged, directed, masturbated during, and often electronically recorded,” the indictment says. Per the document, the rapper lured women into his home with promises of a romantic relationship, then plied them with drugs to facilitate the Freak Offs. One particularly telling detail is that the sessions lasted so long that the women involved had to receive fluids through an IV afterward “to recover from the physical exertion and drug use.”
During the raid in March, we learned, the feds found multiple AR15s with their serial numbers filed off, as well as other weapons that the mogul allegedly had his staff carry. Per the New York Post, feds also discovered “Freak Off supplies, including narcotics and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant.”
September 16, 2024: Combs was arrested at a Manhattan hotel at around 8:30 p.m., according to The New York Times, following an indictment, which was sealed at the time of his arrest.
On Tuesday, per the Associated Press, the unsealed indictment revealed that Combs was charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, the same crimes R. Kelly was found guilty of in 2022. Combs’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, said outside the courthouse that his client would plead not guilty, and that Agnifilo would “fight like hell” to get Combs released.
May 19, 2024: Combs posts a statement in response to the video footage on Instagram.
Alongside the caption, “I'm truly sorry,” Combs posted a video in which he said, “It's so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life. Sometimes you got to do that. I was fucked up. I mean, I hit rock bottom. I make no excuses. My behaviour on that video is inexcusable.”
He goes on to say that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions “in that video.” He added, “I'm disgusted. I was disgusted then when I did it, I'm disgusted now. I went and I sought professional help. Going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace."
He concluded, "I'm so sorry, but I'm committed to be a better man each and every day. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm truly sorry."
May 18, 2024: The following day, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office releases a statement on Instagram regarding the video footage.
“We are aware of the video that has been circulating online allegedly depicting Sean Combs assaulting a young woman in Los Angeles,” reads the statement. “We find the images extremely disturbing and difficult to watch. If the conduct depicted occurred in 2016, unfortunately we would be unable to charge as the conduct would have occurred beyond the timeline where a crime of assault can be prosecuted. As of today, law enforcement has not presented a case related to the attack depicted in the video against Mr. Combs, but we encourage anyone who has been a victim or witness to a crime to report it to law enforcement or reach out to our office for support from our Bureau of Victims Services.”
17 May 2024: A disturbing video pulled from hotel security is released by CNN. The footage shows Combs assaulting Ventura on March 2016. In the video, Combs is seen running after Ventura down a hallway in the hotel wearing socks and a towel. He can then be seen grabbing the neck of her hoodie, pulling her to the ground, and kicking her multiple times. The video also showed Combs shoving Ventura in the same hallway and, later, throwing something at someone, presumably Ventura, who is out of the shot.
Douglas H. Wigdor, one of Ventura's attorneys, told CNN, “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr. Combs. Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
May 17, 2024 (1): People reported that Combs’s alleged drug mule Brendan Paul had accepted a plea deal on cocaine and marijuana possession charges. “Brendan accepted the prosecutor’s offer to permit his entry into the diversion program which, after completion, the case against him will be dismissed in its entirety,” Paul’s attorney Brian Bieber said in a statement.
May 17, 2024 (2): CNN shared a graphic surveillance video of Combs assaulting then girlfriend Cassie Ventura on March 5, 2016. In the video Combs can be seen chasing after Ventura in a hotel hallway wearing nothing but socks and a towel around his waist. When Combs catches up to Ventura by the elevators, he can be seen pulling her to the ground by the neck of her hoodie before kicking her multiple times and attempting to drag her away. The video later shows Ventura picking up a phone in the elevator bank before being shoved by Combs. Through a mirror, Combs can then be seen sitting in a chair and throwing something (presumably) toward Ventura.
This footage appears to match an incident described in Ventura’s lawsuit, which occurred “around March 2016.” According to the lawsuit, Combs punched Ventura in the face “while extremely intoxicated” at the InterContinental Hotel in Century City. Once Combs was asleep, Ventura attempted to leave the hotel. However, Combs woke up and “followed her into the hallway of the hotel while yelling at her.”
Per CNN, the complaint continued, “He grabbed at her, and then took glass vases in the hallway and threw them at her, causing glass to crash around them as she ran to the elevator to escape.” The lawsuit also claimed Combs paid the since-closed hotel $50,000 for security footage of the incident.
Once CNN aired the footage in May 2024, Ventura’s lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor shared the following statement: “The gut-wrenching video has only further confirmed the disturbing and predatory behaviour of Mr. Combs. Words cannot express the courage and fortitude that Ms. Ventura has shown in coming forward to bring this to light.”
March 27, 2024: Fans found and resurfaced a 2016 Howard Stern interview with singer Usher, who lived with Combs when he was a teenager starting out in the music business. In the clip he is vague about what he saw there, saying, “There were very curious things taking place.”
That same day Combs’s lawyer issued a statement, calling the raid an “excessive show” and an “ambush” that was executed as a media spectacle. He noted that Combs was never detained and that he was cooperating with authorities. The lawyer described allegations against Diddy as a “witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits” and reiterated that his client was “innocent.”
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26 March 2024: TMZ publishes photos of Combs’s private jet landing in Antigua, though Combs himself did not appear to be on board the plane.
In the wake of the raids, a lawyer for Cassie and another unnamed alleged victim release a statement to Good Morning America, per ABC: “We will always support law enforcement when it seeks to prosecute those that have violated the law…. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a process that will hold Mr. Combs responsible for his depraved conduct.”
25 March 2024: Federal agents for the Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York raid Combs’ homes in Miami and LA, according to ABC News, as part of an “ongoing investigation” led by the Southern District of New York. Sources in law enforcement told the outlet that the investigation is related to alleged human trafficking. Per CNN, it is unclear whether Combs himself was specifically targeted; a source told the outlet that they were unable to reveal more information given the sensitive nature of the investigation. Rolling Stone reports that four Jane Does and one John Doe have already sat with investigators for interviews related to alleged sex trafficking, domestic violence, and racketeering.
According to NBC News, Combs was in Florida at the time of the raids, and his phones were seized by the authorities ahead of his scheduled trip to the Bahamas. Later that same day TMZ publishes video of Combs apparently at the Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, reportedly just a few hours after the searches were executed at his homes.
Rolling Stone reports that Brendan Paul, who was accused in a recent lawsuit of being Combs’ drug “mule,” was arrested at 4:30 p.m. at Miami-Opa Locka airport on cocaine and marijuana possession charges. According to the arrest affidavit, police were working alongside Homeland Security agents when the arrest was made. At this time, it is unclear if the arrest is related to the investigation into Combs. [In May 2024, Brendan Paul accepted a plea deal and entered a drug diversion programme, meaning he will serve no jail time.]
6 December 2023: A woman anonymised as Jane Doe in legal documents becomes the fourth person to accuse Diddy of sexual assault – specifically gang rape – as well as sex trafficking, per the AP. She alleges that in 2003, Harve Pierre, then president of Combs’s Bad Boy Records, flew her on a private jet from Detroit to New York, where Combs, Pierre, and a third man raped her when she was 17, a minor. Pierre denies the allegations.
In a statement published on Instagram on 6 December, Combs denies all accusations of sexual assault, writing, “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.”
November 18, 2023: Ben Brafman, one of Combs’s lawyers, denied that settling the lawsuit equates to an “admission of wrongdoing” in a statement to CNN.
“A decision to settle a lawsuit, especially in 2023, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing,” Brafman said. “Mr. Combs’s decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”
November 17, 2023: Ventura and Combs settled their lawsuit, according to separate statements obtained by CNN. “We have decided to resolve this matter amicably. I wish Cassie and her family all the best. Love,” Combs said, per the news outlet. As for Ventura, she said, “I have decided to resolve this matter amicably on terms that I have some level of control. I want to thank my family, fans, and lawyers for their unwavering support.”
The settlement amount was not disclosed.
16 November 2023: Singer Cassie files a lawsuit accusing Combs of physical and sexual abuse that lasted for years, according to the Associated Press (AP). Through his lawyer, Combs denies the accusations. After Cassie’s lawsuit went public, others came forward with similar lawsuits that also accused the music mogul of sexual assault.
This story will be updated.
For more information about reporting and recovering from rape and sexual abuse, you can contact Rape Crisis on 0808 500 2222.
If you have been sexually assaulted, you can find your nearest Sexual Assault Referral Centre here. You can also find support at your local GP, voluntary organisations such as Rape Crisis, Women's Aid, and Victim Support, and you can report it to the police (if you choose) here.
A version of this article was originally published on GLAMOUR US.
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