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“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs headed to jail [September 17] to await trial in a federal sex trafficking case that accuses him of presiding over a sordid empire of sexual crimes protected by blackmail and shocking acts of violence…
“The music mogul is charged with racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. The indictment against him lists allegations that go back to 2008. He’s accused of inducing female victims and male sex workers into drugged-up, sometimes dayslong sexual performances dubbed ‘Freak Offs.’” AP News
Both sides condemn Combs and question why he was not indicted earlier:
“The complaint alleges that those in his inner circle enabled Combs, allowing what’s described as his violence against women to go unchecked or addressed. ‘Over the decades following his rise to fame, Mr. Combs’ star-studded, larger-than-life persona overshadowed his vicious temper and pervasive acts of violence directed toward those in his inner circle — specifically, women,’ the complaint states…
“That’s how intimate-partner violence persists: When the people who should attempt to interrupt that violence are intimidated, subjected to uneven power dynamics or backed down by enablers, the violence is allowed to continue… I would love to offer an expression of surprise at the allegation here, but in an industry that still treats hip-hop figures accused of abuse as icons — instead of walking caution signs in need of help — there’s no surprise to be found.”
Evette Dionne, MSNBC
“What other celebrities and music executives were in on it? Certainly many of them must have known what was happening. Beyonce, Jay Z, Jennifer Lopez (Combs’ ex-girlfriend), Leonardo DiCaprio, LeBron James, and the Kardashians, among many others have all attended his parties. Some may have been victims, others complicit…
“Connections between these elites run deep. Not just in entertainment but politics as well. Combs’ former bodyguard Gene Deal reportedly said that Combs kept tapes of politicians taking part in his infamous ‘freak off’ sessions… “For decades, sex trafficking among our cultural and political elite has been dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory,’ and victims have been gaslit, ridiculed, and silenced for speaking out. Those who dares discuss it are smeared as chronically online paranoid freaks. Yet so many of these allegations end up being true.”
Evita Duffy-Alfonso, The Federalist
Other opinions below.
“One reason that sex rings can endure for years is that bystanders fail to recognize what is occurring right before their eyes… People imagine victims bound and gagged, in handcuffs and chains and held captive in a dungeon. Instead, the victims usually walk openly in public, side by side with their traffickers…
“[Traffickers] might provide lavish gifts, addictive drugs or promises of a glamorous career in modeling. The trafficker then uses those enticements as leverage against his victims. Nude photos created under the guise of creating a modeling portfolio are held over a victim’s head as potential revenge porn. Drugs are used to keep a victim, now addicted, dependent on the trafficker for another hit. Threats of physical harm and even beatings are used to coerce the victim into submission that may appear voluntary to onlookers.”
Barbara L McQuade, Bloomberg
“While the Me Too movement forced reckonings around sexual assault and harassment in industries from film to other media to restaurants in 2017 and 2018, many in the music business felt that its biggest players were relatively unscathed. R. Kelly, for example, faced few consequences until Hampton’s widely watched 2019 docuseries drew renewed attention to the accusations…
“Now, [Casandra] Ventura and the other people filing suit are reporting violent rape, intimidation, and abuse by one of the biggest names in music… Combs in his heyday was an icon of power and influence in music, fashion, and business, and the lawsuits represent a new willingness to call that power to account. They also serve as a reminder that the Me Too movement has made enduring changes.”
Anna North, Vox
“As the music industry does a retrospective assessment of how alleged crimes of such inhumanity went on for decades unchecked, it seems fitting that the record label he started is called ‘Bad Boy Entertainment.’ It is hard to understand how the same culture that enriched a ‘bad’ man for decades while he rapped and produced music about sexual fantasies, often of a coercive, drug-fueled and pornographic nature, now wants to charge him for the crime of living a lifestyle that matched his bravado…
“The indictment of one of music entertainment’s biggest names is also an indictment of our popular culture. If we don’t like women to be degraded and abused, perhaps it’s time we stop paying for the simulation in our music and visual entertainment. Until then, little girls and barely legal 19-year-olds will continue to pay the price.”
Anna Kaladish Reynolds, The Federalist
“Abuse, victimization, pedophilia and sexual predation is rampant in Hollywood but they all shut up about it and protect their friends. Yet, those same enabling hacks will get on an award stage and preach about human rights and gay rights or Palestinian rights- whatever is en vogue at the time - as if they are the morality police…
“And those same people will warn you about the dangers of Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. Look in the mirror. Look at your friends. Look at your cesspool of an industry. You wanna save the world? Maybe start at home and get to cleaning. Oh, and maybe start calling it out when it happens instead of a decade later after a federal raid. There’s a reason these people get paid to pretend for a living.”
Tomi Lahren, OutKick
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NBC San Diego
