New investigation into Sean “Diddy” Combs’ alleges history of abuse

At this point, seeing a headline about Sean “Diddy” Combs’ “history of violence” isn’t going to prompt a lot of surprise. Actually—Combs’ alleged violent behavior was never really a surprise. Even before the recent spate of sexual assault lawsuits, there was a lot of publicly available evidence that incriminated the music mogul. There were alleged beatings of rivals, more than one shady shooting, and a history of legal trouble; Combs himself claimed he got the nickname “Puffy” because his temper would make him “huff and puff.” But in the wake of the more recent allegations, Rolling Stone did a deep dive into Combs’ life and career that paints a clearer picture of the man.

The RS investigation covers publicly known incidents (the City College stampede, the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the Club New York shooting, etc.) as well as providing more context for the lawsuits against Combs that are currently active. But it also covers previously unreported allegations that date all the way back to his time at Howard University. He gained his reputation for a violent temper even then, in one incident attacking a girlfriend in public on campus in front of multiple witnesses, reportedly striking her with his belt while “screaming at the top of his lungs.” His then-girlfriend “was trying to defend herself a little bit. She was crying. And we were telling him, ‘Get off of her.’ We were screaming for her,” an anonymous witness recalled.

After dropping out as a Sophomore and rising at Uptown Records, this pattern of behavior continued after he was fired and struck out on his own with Bad Boy Records. Bad Boy co-founder and president Kirk Burrowes told the outlet that he “once saw Combs attack a woman inside Bad Boy’s office in 1994,” while another former employee said “they had to tear Combs off the woman after hearing screams and the sound of shattering glass.”

As an executive, his business practices drove artists away (currently, his only remaining signees on his label include himself, stepson Quincy Jones, son Christian, and Janelle Monáe). His sexual proclivities bled into his professional life in inappropriate ways; Kasey Sheridan, a member of the teenage girl band Dream, shared that the group was once summoned to meet Combs at his hotel where they waited 20 minutes before Combs emerged from his room in a bathrobe, while a woman’s purse and heels sat by the door. “It’s like, you can’t even keep our innocence. I’m 15, walking into this situation knowing exactly what he was doing next door,” she said. Female artists were rumored to be pressured into sex with executives (Cassie Ventura, who sued Combs for sex trafficking, began as a Bad Boy artist before being pressured into a personal relationship with him.) Other Bad Boy employees were frightened of the boss who would yell and fire people on a whim. “He was so volatile,” a source who sometimes worked with Bad Boy said. “He’s always on the edge of snapping and being scary. People did whatever he said to stay in his good graces … and Puffy exploited people’s desires to be in those environments.”

Overall, the impression from this investigation is a man with a short fuse, whose penchant for drugs of all kinds only heightened his volatility. Multiple incidences are described of Combs blowing up on Ventura in front of others. An attendee of one of his parties who left after watching him aggressively berate Ventura throughout the night told the outlet, “You could tell in her eyes that she’s scared. I’m like, ‘Is this normal? Am I trippin’ right now? Why is nobody saying anything? Are they that scared of him?’” It appears that Combs used his money, fame, and power to keep people quiet about his worst offenses and keep people in fear over the years. Whether he’ll be able to leverage those things during this period of reckoning remains to be seen—but you get the sense we’ve only scratched the surface of what’s been going on with Diddy behind the scenes. You can read the full Rolling Stone piece here.