Rap billionaire Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is facing claims he sexually abused a man after a record producer sued him for constant groping and a possible drug-induced rape.
Statement From Prosecution
Rodney ‘Lil Rod’ Jones says he was ordered to recruit prostitutes and have sex with them for the star’s pleasure, and has hundreds of hours of video documenting Combs’s ‘serious illegal activity’.
The embattled hip-hop star is already facing lawsuits from three women and has lost a host of commercial deals in the wake of the claims.
Jones has named some of the industry’s biggest names as co-defendants in the $30 million suit, claiming record boss Ethiopia Habtemariam dismissed Combs’s groping as ‘friendly horseplay’, and his way of ‘showing that he likes you’.
Reply From Sean’s Team
The star has denied the existing allegations against him, calling them ‘sickening’, and his lawyer dismissed Jones’s claims as ‘pure fiction’.
‘Lil Rod is nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 billion lawsuit shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday,’ attorney Shawn Holley said.
‘His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines.
‘We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies. Our attempts to share this proof with Mr Jones’ attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored, as Mr Blackburn refuses to return our calls.’
Combs recruited Jones in August 2022 to produce some of the songs on the R&B album ‘The Love Album: Off the Grid’ which was nominated for a Grammy after its release in September 2023.
‘Mr Jones agreed, and his life has been detrimentally impacted ever since,’ the lawsuit claims.
For more than a year he endured ‘constant unsolicited and unauthorized groping and touching of his anus’, at Combs’ homes in Florida, Los Angeles and New York, as well as on a rented yacht in the US Virgin Islands.
Details of the Lawsuit
Combs introduced him to Cuba Gooding Jr on the yacht where the actor allegedly began ‘touching, groping, and fondling Mr Jones’s legs, his upper inner thighs near his groin, the small of his back near his buttocks and his shoulders’.
He claims he was also sexually assaulted by a female cousin of Combs’s girlfriend Yung Miami and forced to watch a video of record producer Stevie J having sex with another man.
Jones was required to work in Combs’ bathroom where the star would shower naked behind a glass screen, according to the lawsuit.
The producer alleges Combs boasted of having shot people and threatened to inflict bodily harm if Jones did not comply with his demands.
He says the ‘forceful and demanding’ star privately admitted involvement in a 1999 nightclub shooting that saw him acquitted of gun possession and bribery charges.
‘Mr Combs consistently made it clear that he has immense power in the music industry and with law enforcement,’ the lawsuit claims.
Jones claims that underage girls and sex workers were guests at the star’s house parties and that he saw the star drug their drinks.
He also claims he was ordered to Miami trawl bars and nightspots to recruit sex workers, and says he himself was drugged in February last year before he woke up naked, dizzy and confused in bed with Combs and two sex workers.
When The Suit Was Filed
The suit was filed on Monday at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York three weeks after Jones launched a Gofundme appeal asking for money to sue the rapper for unpaid royalties.
‘For the better part of the past 6 months, my team and I have extended every opportunity we knew possible to have these matters addressed and resolved (fairly) but in private,’ he wrote.
‘However, Diddy’s negotiation tactics, to stall communications, dry out (my) funds, and have me negotiating out of desperation or without a real means of fighting back has forced me here!’
More About The Lawsuit
His lawsuit also names Combs’ son Justin, his chief of staff Kristina Khorram, and Universal Music Group CEO Sir Lucian Grange as defendants.
It accuses Khorram of ‘grooming’ him on Combs’s behalf and claims that Motown Records, Love Records and Universal Music Group comprised a ‘Rico enterprise’ that ‘failed to adequately monitor, warn or supervise’ Combs and his inner circle.
A spokesman for Justin Combs said he ‘categorically denies these absurd allegations’.
‘They are all lies!’ he added, ‘This is a clear example of a desperate person taking desperate measures in hopes of a pay day.’
