Sean Combs — also called Puff Daddy and Diddy — is one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in modern music. He performed a key function in making hip-hop a world cultural pressure, and helped flip rap and R&B artists just like the Infamous B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into family names.
Rising from middle-class origins in Harlem and suburban Mount Vernon, N.Y., Mr. Combs, 55, willed himself into the music enterprise from a younger age. Whereas nonetheless a young person, he appeared as a backup dancer in music movies for Superb Younger Cannibals and different acts, and he bought an internship at Uptown Information, the label on the forefront of latest jack swing and the mixing of R&B with rap. He quickly grew to become an government there and confirmed a uncommon expertise for not solely producing hit songs however conceptualizing the general look and perspective of his acts. By placing himself of their high-budget movies, he made himself recognizable to followers too.
Mr. Combs quickly grew to become a star in his personal proper, together with his personal label: Unhealthy Boy. As Puff Daddy, he went to No. 1 in 1997 with “I’ll Be Lacking You,” which sampled the Nineteen Eighties band the Police; on MTV’s hit actuality present “Making the Band” he performed the function — maybe solely barely exaggerated from actual life — of the foul-mouthed, short-tempered label boss who demanded the very best from everybody in his circle. On the identical time, Mr. Combs was turning into a fixture within the tabloid superstar media by means of his bacchanalian White Events at his Hamptons property and elsewhere, and, at one level, by courting Jennifer Lopez. At his peak, he made fame itself a type of efficiency artwork.
But he had additionally been trailed by numerous accusations of violence, misconduct and negligence. In 1991, on the very starting of his profession, he promoted a charity basketball recreation in Harlem the place 9 younger folks had been crushed to demise in a stampede. 5 years later, he threatened a photographer with a gun. In 1999 he and his bodyguards beat a rival music government; later that 12 months, Mr. Combs was arrested after a taking pictures at a New York nightclub the place three folks had been injured. Nonetheless, Mr. Combs largely escaped main penalties. He was acquitted at trial for the nightclub taking pictures and paid about $750,000 of the $3.8 million in settlements for the wrongful demise fits over the basketball stampede.
These controversies and accusations had little impact on his fame or success in his many enterprise enterprises, which included a well-liked style line and a profitable deal selling liquor manufacturers. As lately as two years in the past, Mr. Combs was being feted as an trade visionary and a philanthropist.
That popularity started to crumble in late 2023, after a former girlfriend, the singer Cassie, accused him of sexual assault, rape and years of physical abuse. In a bombshell lawsuit, Cassie, whose actual identify is Casandra Ventura, stated that Mr. Combs had coerced her into collaborating in drug-fueled sexual marathons that he referred to as “freak-offs.”
Cassie’s swimsuit was settled in simply sooner or later, with what Mr. Combs’s attorneys have described as an eight-figure settlement. However Cassie’s case led to a federal felony investigation that resulted in Mr. Combs’s arrest in September on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to have interaction in prostitution. Ms. Ventura is predicted to be the federal government’s star witness within the case.
Mr. Combs has pleaded not responsible to the fees, and has strenuously denied the accusations towards him. In a latest assertion concerning the authorities’s indictment, Mr. Combs’s authorized crew stated the accusers had been “former long-term girlfriends, who had been concerned in consensual relationships.” It continued, “This was their non-public intercourse life, outlined by consent, not coercion.”
