CW: This article will touch on the subjects of sexual assault, psychological and physical abuse, which may be triggering to some members of our readership.
On September 17, Sean Combs, most famously known as “Puff-Daddy”, “P-Diddy” or “Diddy” was indicted on multiple charges of sex trafficking by force, racketeering conspiracy, fraud or coercion, and transportation for prostitution. If his attorney Marc Agnifilo claimed his client had done nothing wrong, this indictment comes as no surprise considering Combs’ reputation and track history in the last twenty-five or so years.
Whilst this article will not delve into the complexities of the various cases, it will explore the way Combs used his power and position in the music industry as a rapper and producer, and delve into how, for twenty years, the industry has allowed him to do so.
Some have called 2024 the year of karma, where artists like Drake finally got publicly called out for their actions–yet the cases of Drake and Combs are not comparable. If Drake’s trial was affected in the court of public opinion, spearheaded by Kendrick Lamar and Metro Boomin, Combs’ case goes deeper and darker. How can a man who has been, since the 1990s, known to be violent and predatory, know little to no consequences until this very year? From organising a basketball game where over five people lost their lives due to faulty security, to blowing up Kid Cudi’s car (the latter publicly acknowledged through his team the veracity of the claim), to even physically intimidating other stars in the industry (i.e. J Cole or Nas) or allegedly participating in their murders (2Pac and Biggie), it is already a wonder people continued working with him.
Yet, as unacceptable are his acts of physical and psychological intimidation, the most unforgivable lies in his continued violence against women, which allegedly started in his college years in the 1980s when he violently and verbally abused his girlfriend at the time. Combs repeatedly, over at least the last twenty-five years, coerced women to perform non-consensual sexual acts on him and his partners. There are, at the time of this article, over twenty-one women and men who have come out to the law stating that the rapper raped or assaulted them, using his position of power and influence, as well as chemically drugging them, to pressure them into this position of extreme vulnerability and rob them of their bodily and psychological agency. Combs is also known for throwing “freak parties” in his Miami and Los Angeles mansions, where he would drug unknowing staff members (including male ones) and other “guests”, who would wake up with no memory of the night and bruises over their bodies. These parties are also rumoured to be one of the places where Combs would instigate or participate in sex trafficking and forced prostitution.
Why does this continue to happen for over twenty-five years, why are there only deep consequences now when these stories have already started being told way earlier? And the industry let it happen because to hold him accountable is to hold themselves accountable: to call out Combs would mean acknowledging the precarious and depraved system of power these “artists” benefit from- to go against Diddy would call for an introspection and restructuring of this entire industry. This is an industry riddled with misogyny that ignores or shames people who come out with stories of assault, labels victims as ‘money-grabbers’, invokes the idea that celebrities are misunderstood, is fuelled by the best publicists and lawyers money can buy, and has myriads of die-hard fans who refuse to see any faults in their idols. Diddy is not only a perpetrator, but also a symptom of the disease that plagues the industry, where they, and in effect we, allow these people to get away with anything because we as a system refuse to acknowledge the insanity of the amount of power these men have, a power partly dependent on our patriarchal society which enables men to refuse to understand the mere idea of refusal, of not being able to get what they want.
We see celebrities like Oprah have long-standing friendships with Diddy and Jeffrey Epstein, like Ashton Kutcher who would attend his parties and publicly defend rapists like his old co-star and convicted rapist Danny Masterson, and we defend them because they are “likable” and we “couldn’t imagine them doing something like that.” We build parasocial relationships with them, not understanding that their image is perfectly curated to sell us the product of their identity, and we refuse to understand that the people we see on screens we do not know anything about.
The reign of Diddy, Drake, Weinstein, Epstein, and many more must be over. We owe it not only to the many survivors but also to ourselves, as we are guilty of enabling them. This is a call for boycott and support of these survivors- to support people like Diddy is indirectly condoning their behaviours, and this should be no more.
“But, Kells, the day you put out a hit’s the day Diddy admits / That he put the hit out that got Pac killed, ah.” – Eminem, ‘Killshot’
“P Diddy 2000” by John Mathew Smith & http://www.celebrity-photos.com is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.