For nearly two years, a nearly nonstop parade of allegations and revelations has ravaged and unraveled Sean “Diddy” Combs’ carefully cultivated reputation as an affable celebrity entrepreneur, A-list party host, Grammy-winning artist and music executive, brand ambassador and reality TV star.
It culminated in a verdict Wednesday that saw Combs acquitted of the most serious sex trafficking charges, though guilty of two lesser ones. The stratospheric heights of his previous life may be impossible to regain, but the question remains whether a partial conviction could mean a partial public rehabilitation, or if too much damage has been done.
“Combs managed to avoid becoming the next R. Kelly,” said Evan Nierman, CEO and president of crisis public relations firm Red Banyan, referring to the R&B superstar convicted of similar sex trafficking charges as those that Combs beat.
Combs, 55, has yet to be sentenced and faces the likelihood of prison time, but he no longer faces the prospect of spending most of the rest of his life behind bars. While the law allows for a prison sentence of up to 10 years, the lawyers in the case said in court filings that guidelines suggest a term that could be as short as 21 months or last more than five years.
“This is a very positive outcome overall for him. And it does give him an opportunity to try to rebuild his life,” Nierman said. “It won’t be the same, but at least he’s likely going to be out there in the world and able to move forward.”
Moving on from the jokes that ‘will haunt him forever’
The case had a broad reach across media that made Combs a punchline as much as a villain. Talk shows, “Saturday Night Live” and social media posters milked it for jokes about “freak-offs” and the voluminous amounts of baby oil he had for the sex marathons.
“There are definitely terms which have now become part of the popular lexicon that never existed pre-Diddy trial, including things like ‘freak-off,’” Nierman said. “The images that were painted in the trial and some of the evidence that was introduced is going to stick with him for a long time.”
Danny Deraney, who has worked in crisis communications for celebrities as CEO of Deraney Public Relations, agreed.
“The jokes will haunt him forever,” Deraney said.
Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives at the BET Awards at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, on June 26, 2022. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP File)
Managing public narratives — something Combs has previously excelled at — will be essential. He could cast himself as a tough survivor who took on the feds and came out ahead, or as a contrite Christian seeking redemption, or both.
“It’s a powerful thing for the hip-hop mogul to go public and brag that he beat the rap and that the feds tried to come after him and they failed,” Nierman said. “I could definitely see him leaning into that.”
Nierman said the fight “now will become part of the Sean Combs mythology.”
Combs fell to his knees and prayed in the courtroom after he was acquitted Wednesday of sex trafficking and racketeering charges. The moment by all accounts was spontaneous but could also be read as the start of a revival narrative.
“No matter what you’re accused of, it’s what you do to redeem yourself on the way back,” Deraney said. “Is he redeemable? Those are still heavy charges he was guilty of. It’s tough to say; people have had these charges hanging over their heads and were able to move on.”
The long fall
Combs has been behind bars since his September arrest and will remain jailed while he awaits sentencing.
His long reputational fall began when his former longtime girlfriend and R&B singer Cassie, the criminal trial’s key witness, sued him in November 2023, alleging years of sexual and physical abuse. He settled the next day for $20 million, but the lawsuit set off a storm of similar allegations from other women and men. Most of the lawsuits are still pending.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, born Casandra Ventura, has.
The revelation last year of a major federal sex trafficking investigation on the day of a bicoastal raid of Combs’ houses took the allegations to another level of seriousness and public knowledge. The later revelation that feds had seized 1,000 bottles of baby oil and other lubricant entered the popular culture immediately.
Fellow celebrities were called out for past Diddy associations — though no others were implicated in the criminal allegations.
The May 2024 leak of a video of Combs beating Cassie in a Los Angeles hotel hallway eight years earlier was arguably just as damaging, if not more, than the initial wave of allegations. It brought a rare public apology, in an earnestly presented Instagram video two days later.
Nierman called the video, shown at trial, “something people aren’t just going to forget.”
Shortly after Combs’ apology, New York City Mayor Eric Adams requested he return a key to the city he’d gotten at a ceremony in 2023. Howard University rescinded an honorary degree it had awarded him and ended a scholarship program in his name. He sold off his stake in Revolt, the media company he’d founded more than a decade earlier.
Combs is not about to get the key, or the degree, back. But he could pick up the pieces of his reputation to salvage something from it.
Deraney said it may require “some kind of come-to-Jesus moment where he owns up to it.”
“Really what it’s going to come down to is if he goes to prison, will it change him?” Deraney said. “Has he changed at all during this whole processes? I don’t know.”
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