Who Are The Men Now Exposing Diddy, Really?
Former Bad Boy rapper Mark Curry, author of the 2009 Sean “Diddy” Combs expose, Dancing With The Devil, shared some of his Bad Boy recollections with the YouTube channel Art of Dialogue last week. His book, which accused Combs of being an exploitative businessman, slipped under the radar years ago. But now that it’s open season on Combs, who was hit with three lawsuits alleging rape, assault, and other mistreatment, Curry is making allegations that he left off the page.
In clips posted on YouTube, he claims that Combs broke his ex-girlfriend Kim Porter’s nose during a fight on a yacht. He also alleged that Combs hit a producer with a chair after overhearing them talking with Porter on a phone line he allegedly had tapped. Curry added that he’d also seen Diddy spike women’s alcohol in the club. The drugging accusation is jarring because of his implication that he continued to party with him after seeing it the first time. Curry joins Diddy’s former bodyguards Gene Deal and Roger Bonds as some of the first to speak out on their experience with Diddy after the lawsuits. Their recollections will further stain Diddy’s already tarnished reputation, but they also expose themselves with every disturbing detail, effectively admitting to sticking around after the first alleged impropriety.
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Combs was hit with three lawsuits last month accusing him of sexual violence and abuse. His longtime girlfriend (and Bad Boy signee) Cassie alleged that Combs raped and assaulted her, as well as forced her to have sex with male sex workers. Another woman, listed in the lawsuit as “Jane Doe,” alleged that in 1991, Combs drugged her, raped her, and filmed the assault, later showing the tape to friends. Another suit claims that Combs and R&B artist Aaron Hall took turns raping a woman and her friend in the nineties and that Combs attacked her days later at her home.
Cassie’s lawsuit was filed against Combs and lists his businesses, Bad Boy Records, Bad Boy Entertainment, Epic Records, and Combs Enterprises, as defendants. After a settlement was reached within 24 hours, Diddy’s lawyer released a statement saying “Mr. Combs’ decision to settle the lawsuit does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims.” Diddy has since temporarily stepped down as chairman of his entertainment platform Revolt; it’s worth wondering when anyone thinks it’ll be safe to return. And even if he settles his ongoing lawsuit with liquor company Diageo, the accusations make him an unlikely alcohol pitchman. Combs’ past is crumbling his empire. And now, like with any worthwhile coup, all the king’s men are talking.
Shots at Combs’ character aren’t new. Former Bad Boy artist Mase called out alleged nefarious business tactics in 2019, making an Instagram post where he asserted Combs’ “past business practices [has] knowingly…starved your artist that helped u obtain that Icon Award on the iconic BadBoy label.” But there have also been accusations about his character beyond the boardroom. In June, after their son Justin was arrested for DUI, his ex-girlfriend Misa Hylton cryptically posted a slew of Instagram story posts seemingly about Combs, with one stating that “everyone has to sit around for years and act like there isn’t anything wrong with you. This is where the buck stops for me.” In 2019, Diddy’s ex-girlfriend Gina Huynh told gossip blogger Tasha K that Combs physically abused her and claimed that “everyone” around him “knew” what was happening. But her claims didn’t carry as far as news about the recent lawsuits which were consecutively filed shortly before the expiration of the New York State Survivors Act, which temporarily lifted the state’s statute of limitations on civil suits involving sexual misconduct.
Powerful men accused of sexual misconduct are often empowered to be violent by a network of enablers. Surviving R. Kelly chronicled all the hangers-on that R. Kelly paid to help him recruit and house underaged girls — and stay silent about it. Hassan Campbell, who accused Afrika Bambataa of molesting him as a child, has claimed that the Zulu Nation knew about Bambataa’s alleged abuse and looked the other way. Both Cassie and Huynh reference people around Diddy who often looked the other way about his behavior. And now some of those people are admitting to having known about his conduct.
Cassie’s lawsuit alleged that Roger Bonds, Combs’ former security guard, once jumped in the middle of Combs attacking her. Days after the suit went public, Bonds made a since-deleted Instagram post affirming the claims, also saying the allegation “wasn’t the only time [he intervened in violence]. There was other times and other people.” Bonds said he stopped being Combs’ security because he was “sick of having to cover up everything [Combs] did.” But then he deactivated his Instagram, reactivating days later with a subscribe button. He made a since-deleted post where he expressed disdain toward Combs for not offering financial support to his son who is incarcerated in Namibia. He also cryptically promised, “2Faces coming soon.” In another post, he captioned, “Don’t follow me to see what’s next with Cassie & Diddy or make remarks about stuff and relationships YOU know nothing about.” It’s unclear why he deleted his initial video.
Curry’s book Dancing With The Devil is an excoriating account of Diddy as an exploitative businessman who allegedly had him so broke that he considered selling weed to pay the bills. In the penultimate chapter, Curry describes his intentions with the book: “Maybe he would try to deal with me fairly if he knew I was going to air his dirty laundry.” In the book, there is no mention of Curry’s recent accounts of Combs abusing or drugging women. He told Art Of Dialogue that their party practice of spiking champagne, then giving inebriated women pills “was part of the hip-hop culture. We didn’t see nothin’ wrong with it until Bill Cosby got in trouble.” Perhaps putting those details in the book would have unmasked his complicity in Combs’ misdeeds.
Alongside Curry, Diddy’s former security guard Eugene “Big Gene” Deal has been the most devoutly anti-Diddy over the years. Deal worked for Combs throughout the nineties. Since the late 2010s, however, he’s live-streamed multiple times a week on YouTube, recounting stories like accusations of Combs assaulting the mothers of his kids Kim Porter and Misa Hylton. Throughout his scandalous livestreams and fiery takedowns of Combs, it’s worth wondering why he stuck around long enough to have so many salacious stories about someone he can’t seem to stand. In a recent video, he claimed that he never saw Combs assault a woman, and would never allow a woman to be violated in his presence. But he’s also alleged that he had heard about Combs assaulting Hylton and has said he “knew” Porter “was going through the same thing” Cassie alleged. Deal has previously said that he’s working on a book about his time at the label, and he’s been unable to promote it because entertainment platforms are fearful of getting on the bad side of his former client.
Last week, Former Bad Boy President Harve Pierre was hit with a civil suit by a former Bad Boy artist claiming abuse, raising questions about how rampant misconduct was at the label. In a 2022 episode of her Call Her Daddy podcast, former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day called her time at the label “torture,” and said she felt she was removed from the group by Combs for not doing “expected” things that weren’t “talent-wise, but in other areas.” She added, “There was no #MeToo at that time. There was no protecting anyone at that time. You signed a million NDAs and a million contracts that took away your rights.”
This week, a fourth lawsuit was filed by a Jane Doe alleging that Combs and former Bad Boy president Harve Pierre, along with a third man, trafficked and raped her at Combs’ New York recording studio in 2003 when she was 17 years old. In a statement to Rolling Stone, Combs says “I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
For over 30 years, Diddy’s portrayed himself as a two-stepping, funloving Hamptons gallivanter. Still, the smoke of whatever happened with Death Row, City College, and Steve Stoute, as well as the history of claims that he exploited his artists, hinted that his bigger-than-life persona was overcompensating for something unsavory. However, the music was so good that the show went on, and all the security guards, assistants, secretaries, close friends, and others in proximity to the alleged violence apparently ignored it. Now, the blogosphere, aggregation hubs, and gossip hounds giddily share clips of these former associates revealing new information. But it’s worth remembering that Diddy’s empire is toppling thanks to the women who came forward about their trauma, not the enablers who ignored it for years. They only have lengthy stories to divulge because they watched the violence happen and stayed aligned with Combs anyway. They may be truthtellers, but they’re not the heroes of the story.
Update – Dec. 6, 2023, 1:20 p.m. ET: This post was updated to reflect additional allegations
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