Sean 'Diddy' Combs timeline: Sexual misconduct allegations, lawsuits

This story discusses allegations of sexual assault and abuse. If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673.

(NewsNation) — Months after two of rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs’ properties were searched in a raid by federal investigators, the record executive continues to be surrounded with several sexual misconduct and assault allegations.

While the specific reason for the raids was not immediately confirmed by law enforcement, they come after a number of lawsuits filed against Combs in the past few months.

Formerly known as “Puff Daddy,” Combs faced backlash after the lawsuits, but he was once considered one of the most influential hip-hop producers and executives of the last three decades. The founder of Bad Boy Records has worked with artists such as Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, Usher, Lil Kim, Faith Evans and 112, and also created a fashion clothing line and a music-focused TV channel.

Diddy arrested on felony charges and nightclub shooting

April 16, 1999

Combs, then 29 years old, is arrested on felony charges that he and two of his bodyguards assaulted Interscope Records executive Steve Stoute.

Stoute said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that Combs “burst into his office” and attacked him.

“One minute I’m in the middle of a meeting,” he told The Times. “The next minute I’m down on the floor and Puffy and his guys are kicking and pounding me. One of them picks up a chair and throws it at me. Then Puffy throws my desk over and they just walk out like nothing happened.”

Diddy would end up pleading guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to a court-designated anger management program, though Stoute would later sue him and the two would settle out of court for half a million dollars.

December 1999

While partying at Club New York in Midtown Manhattan with his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, “Combs’ crew exchanged words with another clubgoer,” a New York Post article from 2011 said. Gunshots were fired.

Combs and Lopez fled in a Lincoln Navigator, and a gun was found in the car. He was charged with gun possession but later acquitted.

Natania Reuben, who was at the club that night, said she saw Combs shoot her in the face. Reuben filed a $130 million lawsuit against Combs in 2008, which was settled in 2011.

“I watched him fire the gun,” Reuben said on social media in February 2024.

Sources told NewsNation’s Paula Froelich that Combs was very controlling of Lopez and put her in “uncomfortable situations.”

“He manhandled her, but it’s a little low to bring this all up now,” another person said.

Combs and Lopez broke up in 2001. A representative for Lopez declined to comment.

People start to speak out about Diddy

June 2004

Fashion Designer Kimora Lee Simmons said in a New York Magazine interview that she “said something to Combs and he threatened to hit her” while she was pregnant. New York Magazine wrote, “Combs eventually got down on his knees in public to apologize.”

February 2012

Combs allegedly threatened to blow up rapper Kid Cudi’s car after he learned the rapper was romantically interested in his ex-girlfriend, R&B singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. Kid Cudi’s car exploded in his driveway around the same time, according to a lawsuit later filed by Ventura.

Cudi told the New York Times the story was true.

June 2019

Gina Huynh said on a podcast that Diddy abused her during their 5-year relationship.

“He stomped on my stomach really hard — like, took the wind out of my breath,” Huynh said on blogger Tasha K’s show, according to Page Six. “I couldn’t breathe. He kept hitting me. I was pleading to him, ‘Can you just stop? I can’t breathe.’” Huynh said in the interview he paid her $5,000 to abort their baby, which she turned down.

December 2022

Singer Aubrey O’Day, part of the girl group Danity Kane, said on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast Combs fired her from the band because she “wasn’t willing to do what was expected of (her) — not talent-wise, but in other areas.” Danity Kane had been founded on the show Combs executive produced called “Making the Band.” Eventually, they signed on to Bad Boy Records by Combs.

Rolling Stone wrote that O’Day said Combs would tell her “you’re not hot anymore” and that she didn’t “have any curves.”

“You know, I have such a love-hate with it all because I don’t think I would have been able to be so successful in so many other areas had, I not been trained under Diddy,” she said on the podcast. “He was the hardest person that you can work for, and it was torture. And not the work part of it, but the other stuff — mind game. There was a lot of betrayal, there was a lot of lies.”

First lawsuit against Diddy by Cassie

Nov. 16, 2023

Ventura sued Combs, alleging in New York federal court that he brought her into his “ostentatious, fast-paced, and drug-fueled lifestyle” when she was just 19 and he was 37. In the lawsuit, Ventura detailed a years-long relationship that included beatings and rapes, saying that a pattern of abuse began as soon as the relationship started.

Combs’ attorney Ben Brafman said he “vehemently denies” the allegations.

Nov. 17, 2023

Combs and Ventura announced they settled the suit. A news release said the two reached a deal to their “mutual satisfaction,” though the agreement terms were not disclosed.

The deal was reached “amicably,” Ventura said in a statement in which she thanked her family, fans and lawyers.

In his own statement, Combs said he wished “Cassie and her family all the best.”

Two more women say Diddy victimized them

Nov. 23, 2023

Two lawsuits are filed a day before the expiration of a New York law that allowed victims of sexual abuse a one-year window to file civil action, regardless of the statute of limitations.

Both filings described sexual assault, beatings and forced drugging by Combs in the early 1990s, when he was a talent director and party promoter in New York City.

One of the women, Joi Dickerson, said she was a student at Syracuse University when, while on a date, Combs “intentionally drugged” her, then brought her home and sexually assaulted her. Dickerson alleges Combs videotaped the assault and shared it with friends in the music industry, an act that contributed to her “severe depression.”

The other lawsuit was brought by an unnamed woman who said Combs and an R&B singer sexually assaulted her and a friend, then beat her several days later in an attempt to stop them from speaking out. In the latter attack, the suit said, Combs choked the woman, identified as Jane Doe, until she passed out.

A spokesperson for Combs denied these allegations.

More lawsuits against Diddy

Dec. 6, 2023

Combs is accused of the 2003 rape of a woman when she was a 17-year-old high school junior in a lawsuit. The woman, who filed the suit under a “Jane Doe” pseudonym, stated that Combs, his producing partner and a third man “sex trafficked and gang raped” her, according to Business Insider. She said the producing partner met her in Detroit, Michigan, where she lived, and flew her to Combs’ studio in New York City on a private jet. Combs and his producing partner, the lawsuit alleged, “plied Ms. Doe with drugs and alcohol,” getting her inebriated to the point she could not consent “to having sex with anyone, much less someone twice her age,” Business Insider reported.

FILE – Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the Billboard Music Awards, May 15, 2022, in Las Vegas. Combs was sued Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, by a music producer who accused the hip-hop mogul of sexually assaulting him and forcing him to have sex with prostitutes. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
Sean “Diddy” Combs, winner of the global icon award, poses in the press room at the MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023, at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
FILE – Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the BET Awards, June 26, 2022, at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Combs wants to strengthen the Black dollar: The music mogul is spearheading a new online marketplace called Empower Global that will specifically feature Black-owned businesses. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs passes out fifty dollar bills to residents in the Overtown neighborhood of Miami, Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020. Various organizations came together to also pass out gift cards and gift bags with essentials to those in need during the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

On Instagram, Combs put out a statement, saying he has “sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy.”

“Let me be absolutely clear,” he wrote. “I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”

Feb. 26, 2024

A music producer filed a lawsuit in New York federal court saying Combs sexually assaulted him, and forced him to have sex with prostitutes.

The suit said there were repeated instances of unsolicited groping and sexual touching, and that the man had to work in a bathroom while Combs showered and walked around naked.

“We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies,” Combs attorney Shawn Holley said in a statement. “We will address these outlandish allegations in court and take all appropriate action against those who make them.”

March 4. 2024

The producer, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, amended his lawsuit with more allegations.

Raid on Diddy’s properties

March 26, 2024

Federal Homeland Security agents and other law enforcement searched properties owned by Combs in California and Florida. NewsNation local affiliate WPIX confirms this is part of an ongoing sex trafficking investigation by New York federal authorities.

Aaron Dyer, Combs’ attorney, released a statement calling what happened a “gross overuse of military-level force.”

“Mr. Combs was never detained but spoke to and cooperated with authorities. Despite media speculation, neither Mr. Combs nor any of his family members have been arrested nor has their ability to travel been restricted in any way,” Dyer said. “There has been no finding of criminal or civil liability with any of these allegations. Mr. Combs is innocent and will continue to fight every single day to clear his name.”

March 28, 2024

Reuben said on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that learning about the raids has been “very cathartic.”

“I finally felt like justice will be done, justice will be mine and belong to all of his victims,” Reuben said.

Initially, Reuben said, she didn’t think she would be believed.

“In our society, we have respectability politics. There are people who want to be adjacent to power or a celebrity or money. There’s a hierarchy of respectability because (Combs) name was more motivated. He was believed, rather than a victim,” Reuben said.

March 30, 2024

A New York Post article came out saying the investigation into Combs could expand to include the 1999 nightclub shooting.

Reuben said on NewsNation that she is willing to have a doctor remove part of the 9mm bullet in her face so it can be used as evidence if needed.

Diddy investigation expands

Apr. 2, 2024

Sources say the federal investigation into Combs has expanded, including a reinvestigation of a 1999 shooting in New York.

Apr. 5, 2024

Combs’ son is charged with sexual assault and battery in a lawsuit filed by a steward who worked on a yacht chartered by Combs. Combs is accused of aiding and abetting his behavior.

Apr. 24, 2024

Brendan Paul, an assistant to Combs accused of being a drug mule in the lawsuit, pleads not guilty to a drug charge in a South Florida court.

Diddy seen assaulting Cassie in hotel surveillance video

May 17, 2024

Hotel surveillance video from 2016 obtained by CNN appeared to show Sean “Diddy” Combs violently attacking, kicking and shoving Ventura at the now-closed InterContinental Hotel in Century City, Los Angeles.

In the video, Combs is seen running in a towel after Ventura who is seen standing in front of an elevator bank. He aggressively grabs and drags her down and then kicks her before picking up her luggage. He is then seen dragging her on the floor back to a hotel room as she braces her head.

The footage matches the description of a physical altercation Ventura detailed in her now-settled lawsuit against Combs.

May 19, 2024

Combs posted an apology video to social media admitting that he beat his ex-girlfriend Cassie in the hotel hallway in 2016.

Combs said he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable” in the video posted to Instagram and Facebook.

“I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now,” the music mogul said. “It’s so difficult to reflect on the darkest times in your life, but sometimes you got to do that,” Combs said, adding “I went and I sought out professional help. I got into going to therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry.”

He did not address any other allegations.

Diddy’s legal team notified of federal investigation

July 3, 2024

Two sources familiar with the situation confirmed to NBC News that federal investigators are presenting evidence against Combs to a grand jury in the Southern District of New York. The nature of the evidence and the accusations against Combs are unclear at this time.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has not confirmed the investigation. Grand jury proceedings are typically conducted in secret.