It is the fourth sexual abuse lawsuit against the hip-hop mogul in recent weeks, whose complainant has kept her name under a pseudonym. Combs denies the allegations and says they are looking for “a quick payday”.
Famous US rapper and producer Sean Combs, known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, faces his fourth sexual abuse lawsuit in recent weeks. A woman under the pseudonym Jane Doe has accused Combs of participating in a gang rape against her in 2003, when she was 17 years old.
In her lawsuit, the woman says she met Harve Pierre, then the president of Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment record label, at a lounge in Detroit when she was in 11th grade in high school.
According to her, Pierre flew her on a private jet to New York to meet Combs, then 34, at a recording studio. Once there, she claims she was given drugs and alcohol until she was incapable of consenting to sex. Then Combs, Pierre and a third man she did not know allegedly took turns raping her.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, includes photographs as evidence of her allegations which, according to the plaintiff, were taken on the night in question at the Daddy’s House Recording Studio. One of them shows the woman sitting on Combs’ lap.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff has since suffered “extreme emotional distress that has impacted nearly every aspect of her life and personal relationships.”
Four abuse lawsuits in recent weeks
Sean Combs has received three other similar complaints in the last few weeks.
On 16 November, his ex-girlfriend and singer Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit accusing him of subjecting her to physical abuse, sex trafficking and rape over the course of a decade. The case was settled out of court the following day on a confidential basis.
A week later, two more women filed additional lawsuits against Combs, also accusing him of physical and sexual violence.
Combs’ latest accuser says she chose to come forward after reading news accounts of the first of these lawsuits.
The rapper denies all allegations
“For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character,” he wrote. “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged.”
The rapper claims his plaintiffs are just “looking for a quick payday”.
Those lawsuits were among more than 3,700 legal claims filed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily suspended certain legal deadlines to give sexual assault victims a last opportunity to sue over abuse that happened years or even decades ago.
