Sean 'Diddy' Combs suing NBCUniversal for $135m

Sean 'Diddy' Combs is suing NBCUniversal for US$100 million (S$135 million).

The 55-year-old rapper — who is currently in jail awaiting trial over charges of sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution — has filed a lawsuit against the network and production company Ample for claims made in their Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy documentary.

According to documents filed in New York and obtained by the New York Post newspaper's Page Six column, the film assumes Diddy has "committed numerous heinous crimes, including serial murder, rape of minors, and sex trafficking of minors, and attempts to crudely psychologise him."

The documents added: "It maliciously and baselessly jumps to the conclusion that Mr Combs is a 'monster' and 'an embodiment of Lucifer' with 'a lot of similarities to Jeffrey Epstein'."

The complaint goes on to break down the alleged false claims broadcast by NBC and Peacock in January, including a suggestion the Diddy contributed to the 2018 death of his on/off partner Kim Porter — with whom he had four children — despite her passing being attributed to pneumonia.

In the film, Kim's former partner, Al B. Sure! questioned her passing and alleged the model was "gone because she was going to be the next Cassie Ventura", referring to another of Diddy's former partners, who sued him for rape and later settled out of court.

The rapper's lawyers argued the documentary accused him of "murdering the love of his life and mother to his children" despite the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office finding that she died from natural causes and that there has "never been any evidence of foul play".

But the documentary had featured the coroner's findings and stated police had found "no criminal involvement in Kim Porter's death".

They also questioned the reliance on Al as a source as producer Ari Mark knew he had a "weird, very kind of complicated relationship with Sean Combs" because of an interview he gave the Hollywood Reporter.

And the complaint slammed the "unhinged conspiracy theory" that Diddy played a role in the deaths of record executive Andre Harrell and rapper Dwight 'Heavy D' Arrington Myers, who died of heart failure in 2020 and a pulmonary embolism in November 2011 respectively.

The lawsuit stated: "By maliciously advancing the unhinged narrative that Mr Combs is a serial killer — with absolutely no evidence or logic to stand on and in the face of clear evidence to the contrary — Defendants spread fake news of the most damaging kind."

The lawsuit also disputed the resurfacing of a claim made by producer Rodney 'Lil Rod' Jones in a US$30 million lawsuit, in which he accused Diddy of assaulting underage women, but Diddy argued the women had already come forward to state they were not minors and had "never witnessed anything untoward happen at the parties".

Diddy's' team claims they warned NBC and Ample around Dec 10 last year that allegations in the documentary were "unequivocally false" and had been "debunked and lack any credible evidence" but it still went ahead.

The lawsuit added: "The defamatory statements published by Defendants about Plaintiff have directly and proximately caused Plaintiff substantial reputational and financial harm, and damaged his right to a fair trial on the government's charges against him."

Diddy's lawyer accused those behind the documentary of having "maliciously and recklessly broadcast outrageous lies".

Attorney Erica Wolff said in a statement: "As described in today's lawsuit, NBCUniversal Media, LLC, Peacock TV, LLC, and Ample LLC made a conscious decision to line their own pockets at the expense of truth, decency, and basic standards of professional journalism.

"Grossly exploiting the trust of their audience and racing to outdo their competition for the most salacious Diddy expose, Defendants maliciously and recklessly broadcast outrageous lies in Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy."

She added: "In the purported documentary, Defendants accuse Mr Combs of horrible crimes, including serial murder and sexual assault of minors — knowing that there is no evidence to support them.

"In making and broadcasting these falsehoods, among others, Defendants seek only to capitalise on the public's appetite for scandal without any regard for the truth and at the expense of Mr Combs's right to a fair trial."

Source: Bang