‘Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy’ Documentary Reveals New Details From Al B. Sure! and Alleged Gang Rape Victim
A mere two months after the November arrest of Sean “Diddy” Combs on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, the first of multiple planned major documentaries looking into the hip-hop mogul’s life and some of the allegations against him arrives this week on Peacock, revealing some new details of the accused industry superstar’s sordid past.
Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy looks at Combs’ life from his childhood in Mt. Vernon, outside of New York City, through his rapid rise to the top of the music industry and some of the heinous allegations against him, some of which are shared here for the first time. The documentary’s producers have structured the film around several anecdotes and narratives that reveal, or are at least are meant to reveal, Combs’ dark nature. Within these tales from Combs’ life are several striking new details about his tough childhood, a deadly first attempt at promoting a major hip-hop event and accounts of alleged victims, from women accusing Combs of rape and assault to singer Al B. Sure!’s stunted accusations about the death of Kim Porter, his and Combs’ late former partner.
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In a recent interview, producer Ari Mark told The Hollywood Reporter that the doc serves as an origin story: “By zooming out and by taking a more psychological approach, a sociological approach, it felt like we could say something a little bit bigger by presenting that information.”
Combs, 55, is the subject of more than 25 lawsuits related to accusations of sexual misconduct. He is currently awaiting a May trial behind bars at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.
In response to THR‘s comment request on Tuesday, a rep for Combs refuted the claims in the doc and characterized the men and women interviewed as “liars and opportunists” in a statement: “This documentary recycles and perpetuates the same lies and conspiracy theories that have been slung against Mr. Combs for months. It is disappointing to see NBC and Peacock rolling in the same mud as unethical tabloid reporters. By providing a platform for proven liars and opportunists to make false criminal accusations, the documentary is irresponsible journalism of the worst kind.”
Below are five of the biggest takeaways from the Peacock doc.
Diddy Had a Nontraditional Adolescence
The documentary reveals through an interview with his childhood friend, Tim Patterson, how Combs was the son of the so-called “It” couple, Janice and Melvin Combs of Mt. Vernon in Westchester County, about 30 minutes north of Manhattan. But that idyllic home life of his early youth came to an end when his father was caught selling drugs to an undercover cop, and then was allegedly killed after flipping on his boss for the police.
“Sean had to learn about his dad from others,” said Patterson, who goes on to share that Combs’ mother was left with a certain amount of money that allowed her and her son to live on the right side of the tracks; Patterson and his mother moved in with them, partially because Combs’ mother wanted him to be around someone his age.
Patterson explains how when he met young Sean, he was a 10-year-old dressed in a 30-year-old’s wardrobe. During the week, the future fashion executive was seen by his school peers as a rich kid. But on the weekends, Combs grew up fast around his mother’s friends. The documentary suggests this is how his perspective was born, what began to shape his sexual identity and understanding of boundaries.
“Sean’s house, our house, there were always things going on — on the weekend you partied in the house, and we did that a lot,” Patterson explains in the documentary. “He was around all types of alcohol. He was around reefer smoke. He was around drug addicts, around lesbians, around homosexuals. He was around pimps and pushers. That was just who was in our house.”
Puff Stopped at Nothing to Get Into the Industry
Combs has projected himself as a major player in the music business since he first appeared on MTV in 1997, a man-behind-the-man when he was introduced with Faith Evans’ “I’ll Be Missing You” track and video, their hit tribute to Notorious B.I.G. soon after his murder. And it’s true, Combs has had deep connections to the industry for what feels like forever. But it started somewhere — specifically, with him spending the night sleeping outside the car of Uptown Records’ top exec to get his foot in the door.
Uptown Records, as the hit-making home to huge acts like Jodeci, Heavy D & the Boyz and Mary J. Blige, was the “It” label at a certain point in the 1990s. As recording artist Al B. Sure! states, “It was a boutique version of Motown, but we just had the hip-hop flavor to it.” And it’s where a young Sean Combs needed his career to begin — so he did what he had to in order to make it happen.
“Sean wanted to work at Uptown. He actually did some more suffering just to get that internship,” Patterson reveals to the film’s producers. “So, Sean would show up in the weirdest places: at Heavy D’s doorstep. He’d show up at Uptown, he’d show up at parties — anything to get the attention of the bigwigs.”
Key to this initial foothold in the industry was grabbing the attention of Uptown CEO Andre Harrell, who hired him as an intern and ushered him into the label’s A&R department. But Combs didn’t get the gig the easy way. “From what I heard, he even slept outside of [Harrell’s] car because he really wanted to be in this,” Combs’ friend Rich Parker revealed.
The City College Stampede Payouts
On Dec. 28, 1991, a tragedy at City College led to nine hip-hop and basketball fans being killed after they were crushed in a stampede. The beyond-capacity crowd was at the Manhattan school to watch an undeniably must-see event: a celebrity charity basketball game headlined by hip-hop superstars P. Diddy and Heavy D.
On the day of the event, over 5,000 attendees attempted to get inside a gymnasium, which could fit just 2,730 people. Fans desperate to get into the gymnasium to see the game broke into the school and a massive crowd rushed down a stairwell, where double doors led to the gym. But the double doors opened inward, not outward; they remained closed for 15 minutes as more and more fans tried to get inside. Twenty-nine people, mostly teenagers, were crushed on top of the nine young people who died.
Combs, thrown into his first scandal at 22 years old, denied culpability for the stampede. Authorities agreed and he faced no criminal charges. But he did have to face the families of the victims and, in an early harbinger of his current situation, weather a storm of civil suits. He was accused of promoting the event as if it were in a 10,000-person capacity venue, not hiring enough security and overselling the tickets.
Sonya Williams, a 20-year-old from New Rochelle, died at City College that day. She had met Combs through his then-girlfriend and he had given her a ticket and invited her to his event that day. Litigation in the civil case against Combs went on for six years when the now-successful hip-hop star brought Sonny Williams Jr. into his office at BMG. Williams, who sat for an interview with the documentary’s producers, said Combs looked nervous that day — so nervous that his lips had turned white when he offered Sonya’s family a mere $50,000.
“I remember looking around the office and I’m seeing all these plaques now on the wall, Platinum plaques, gold plaques,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Brother, you got all this going on, and you offered me $50,000.’ He said, ‘Sonny, man, listen, man, you know, that’s real generous. That’s a generous donation.’ And I lost it. I said, ‘Is Sonya your fucking friend? You offered me $50,000 and you gave Sonya the ticket to go to that event.’ That was a slap in my face.”
In 1998, Combs expressed his feelings on the tragedy: “City College is something I deal with every day of my life,” he said. “But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.”
The Al B. Sure!/Kim Porter/Diddy Love Triangle
Kim Porter, the late model who was Combs’ long-term partner from 1994 to 2007, before meeting the rap mogul, was in a relationship with Uptown Records artist Al B. Sure!, whose legal name is Albert Joseph Brown. Combs eventually adopted Brown’s son, Quincy. While details on the dynamic of this triangle have been scarce, Peacock’s documentary sheds some light on these tensions and, in a stilted moment during his interview, Brown, hints at the reason behind his distance from the couple — and why he believes he nearly died in 2022.
Brown entered the pre-arrest Diddy rumor mill in October with an Instagram post that threw the death of Porter, in 2018 from lobar pneumonia, into question and effectively threw the tragedy into the swirl of questions circulating about Combs. In the documentary, Brown nearly spills more on his theories around his ex’s death, but stops himself, mentioning ongoing litigation. Brown does, however, reveal Porter’s warning to him while speaking about his ongoing relationship with Quincy.
“You have to keep in mind what people were fed in this propaganda against me over the years; ‘Oh, Puffy did this and adopted your kid’ … if you hadn’t noticed, his name is still Brown,” the singer says. “People thought I was absent and things of that nature. I was basically instructed … [Combs] wasn’t too happy about anyone with a relationship with Kimberly … Kimberly said, ‘Don’t get involved. You will get killed.’ Even to the point where I remember …”
It’s there that Brown stops himself and tells producers that ongoing legal matters behoove him to bite his tongue.
Porter’s death was determined as natural by the Los Angeles County Coroner.
Mark spoke to THR about getting Brown to participate by taking off the pressure around revelations. “He stops himself about things he didn’t want to share about,” he explained of Brown’s interview. “I think what a lot of people don’t realize about producing these types of projects — there is a big leap of faith and you hope that the pieces come together because of who you are and what your intentions are.”
The Account of an Alleged Gang Rape
The most harrowing moment in Peacock’s documentary is the detailing of an alleged gang rape that the accuser — who has filed a lawsuit in California in October regarding her experiences with Combs, his chief of staff Kristina Khorram and several other men — who she alleges raped her after Combs assaulted her with a remote control.
In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, the plaintiff, who is identified as Ashley in the documentary, states that she initially met Combs in Oakland at the home of a man she’d met when he arrived with an entourage: That man was Shane Pierce, who has been accused of being a “scouter” for Combs. It was an uncomfortable encounter, Ashley explained in the filing, as he did not seem pleased when she mentioned unsubstantiated rumors of Combs’ involvement in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur. Upon hearing the remark, Combs said she would “pay” for suggesting it.
The following month, on March 23, 2018, Ashley was at the man’s apartment again when Combs arrived with an entourage of people, including Khorram. Ashley shared several details of the rape she alleges occurred that day.
“Sean Combs had a knife and had it inside my mouth. He said he was going to give me a cut my cheeks and give me a ‘Glasgow smile,'” she states. “Kristina Khorram told him that his clientele would prefer it if I looked normal. At one point, Sean Combs, he picked up a TV remote and raped me vaginally with that object — violently.”
During the rape by multiple individuals, as she described, she was allegedly told by Khorram that “they could ship me off and sell me to anyone in the world,” and that she would never be seen again by her parents or loved ones, and that they were taking her away that night.
“I just uncontrollably was sobbing. I was in a catatonic state once they started raping me, and I was just trying to get through it so I could get out of there,” she tells the documentary’s producers. She managed to run to a neighbor and phone the police but strangely, the arriving officer didn’t offer her any help or get Ashley to a hospital after the alleged brutal encounter. In the documentary, her attorney Ariel Mitchell says that local police did confirm that an officer responded to the neighbor’s home that night.
Attorneys for Combs said in a prepared statement that police found no evidence of what Ashley claims in the legal filing and shares in the documentary.
“As the Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department confirmed, her report was thoroughly investigated, and it was determined the claims were unfounded,” the attorneys said. “Mr. Combs was nowhere near Orinda, California on the day she claims she was assaulted. There is no evidence that Mr. Combs was ever even in the same room as Ms. Parham. She is completely unbelievable and no sane person who views the evidence will credit her story.”
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Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy is now streaming on Peacock.
Jan. 14, 9:30 a.m. This story has been updated with a response from Combs’ rep.
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