A new four-part Netflix docuseries on Sean “Diddy” Combs offers an unflinching and explicit portrait of the disgraced music mogul, depicting him as an alleged serial abuser and manipulator who has never faced the full consequences of his actions. It is the sort of project one might expect from one of Combs’s most outspoken industry rivals: rapper and entrepreneur Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson.
“Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” released Tuesday, draws from interviews with a wide range of voices — artists who worked with Combs, former members of his inner circle, police investigators, a former sex worker, and two jurors who acquitted him of federal sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges earlier this year, while convicting him on prostitution-related counts that resulted in a prison term of more than four years. Although many of the allegations covered will be familiar to long-time hip-hop followers and those who watched the trial, the series introduces new footage, additional accounts and fresh details. According to Combs’s attorneys, some of that footage was taken from video the producer recorded in the days before his arrest, which they claim was intended for his own documentary.
Jackson has long been public about his disdain for Combs. Beyond years of musical jabs and social-media taunts, he has repeatedly accused Combs of having knowledge of — or ties to — the killings of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, claims Combs denies. These accusations are echoed again in the series. Jackson’s criticism of Combs escalated in recent years as more than 80 sexual-assault lawsuits were filed against the once-celebrated entertainment figure, and his Netflix series is among the first major documentary projects released since Combs’s conviction.
Netflix, however, says the project is not retaliatory.
“Curtis Jackson is an executive producer but does not have creative control. No one was paid to participate,” a company spokesperson stated.
Five of the documentary’s most significant moments
1. Combs launches ‘a media war’ ahead of his arrest
The docuseries opens with previously unseen footage from the week before Combs was arrested by federal agents in September 2024. Shot by a videographer hired by Combs, the clips show him pacing nervously inside Manhattan’s Park Hyatt hotel, flanked by his sons Justin and Christian, and expressing frustration to his lawyers about his inability to control how the public narrative was unfolding. Throughout the footage he repeats, “God told me to do nothing, so I’ve got to do what God told me to do.”
In one scene, Combs directs the videographer to capture “cutaway shots” of uniformed officers visible in a nearby building, whom he believed were surveilling him. The documentary also shows him reacting in real time to a sexual-assault lawsuit filed by former Bad Boy artist Dawn Richard days before his arrest. (Combs’s attorneys have called Richard’s allegations “facially ridiculous or demonstrably false” and are seeking to dismiss her suit.)
Combs pushes his team to compile old clips of Richard speaking favorably about him in interviews. “It’s a media war,” he says.
Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Combs, sharply criticized the documentary’s use of this footage, calling it “stolen material” and labeling the series “a shameful hit piece.” He argued that the recordings were part of a long-term personal archive Combs has been assembling since his teens.
“It is fundamentally unfair, and illegal, for Netflix to misappropriate that work,” Engelmayer said, adding that some clips include private discussions with attorneys.
Netflix rejected the accusation.
“The project has no ties to any past conversations between Sean Combs and Netflix,” the company said in a statement. “The footage leading up to his indictment and arrest was legally obtained.”
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Juror criticizes Cassie Ventura for staying with Combs
Two jurors from Sean “Diddy” Combs’s federal trial appear in The Reckoning, the Netflix docuseries, offering their perspectives on the verdict. Identified only as Juror 160 and Juror 75, both say they stand firmly behind the panel’s decision to acquit Combs of sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges, which carried the possibility of a life sentence.
Juror 75, described in court records as a South Asian man, said he was “100 percent” confident that justice was done.
Juror 160, a Black woman, said she had never been a fan of Combs but recalled watching him on Making the Band in the 2000s. She described Combs’s animated reactions during the trial — including moments when he appeared to direct comments or facial expressions toward the jury. The judge eventually reprimanded him for such interactions.
“He would look toward us and be like, ‘you heard that?’ … ‘can you believe they said that?’” she said. “Sometimes I had the same facial expressions he did,” including during testimony from a former assistant who alleged Combs had kidnapped her.
Both jurors echoed key elements of the defense’s case. Juror 160 pointed out that Combs was not charged with domestic assault, even though the prosecution presented extensive — and often uncontested — evidence that he violently abused the government’s main witnesses, Cassie Ventura and another ex-girlfriend identified as Jane.
Juror 75 described Combs and Ventura’s relationship as complicated and insisted Ventura should have left earlier if she felt harmed. “If you don’t like something, you completely get out,” he said. “Have the luxury and then complain about it? I don’t think so.”
Combs calls for a bath after greeting fans
Episode three features additional footage shot in the days before Combs’s 2024 arrest. The clips show him back in Harlem, greeting crowds, talking with locals including rapper Jim Jones and exchanging hugs and handshakes with fans.
After getting into an SUV, Combs immediately asks for hand sanitizer.
“I need some hand sanitizer,” he says. “I’ve been out in the streets amongst the people. Yeah, I got to take a bath… Water got to be boiling hot. Put some peroxide in that.”
His former head of security, Roger Bonds, narrates over the scene: “The only thing he cared about was himself.”
Throughout the series, many former colleagues claim Combs regularly used people around him for personal gain. During sentencing proceedings, his lawyers portrayed him as a champion of diversity and a supporter of Black communities — a characterization Bonds disputes.
“To be honest with you, Sean was uncomfortable around so many Black people,” he said. “It was only when he needed them that he felt comfortable enough.”
Before the arrest, Combs’s lawyers had accused federal agents of targeting him because of his success as a Black man.
Former friend claims Combs’s mother abused him
Several former associates interviewed in the series offer their own theories about the roots of Combs’s alleged violence. One of them, Tim Patterson — a childhood friend whose family lived in the same Mount Vernon building — claims he often witnessed Combs being physically abused by his mother, Janice Combs.
“It wasn’t a joking thing,” Patterson said. “Damn, I hate thinking about that.”
He also alleges that the environment in the Combs household exposed a young Sean to people he described as “pimps and hustlers,” saying the scene sometimes resembled what he saw in blaxploitation films.
These accounts are intercut with archival footage of Combs recalling how his mother “toughened him up,” as well as a 2010 Inside the Actors Studio interview in which Janice, who was present in the audience, joked about giving her son “a lot of beatings.” A representative for Janice Combs did not respond to requests for comment.
Patterson made similar claims earlier this year in Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, a Peacock documentary that is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit Combs has filed against NBCUniversal and Peacock. The companies have moved to dismiss the case.
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A Letter Reveals Decades-Old Sexual Assault Allegations Against Combs
Several women who have accused Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual assault appear in the docuseries, including Joi Dickerson-Neal, who in late 2023 sued Combs for allegedly drugging, raping and filming her during a 1991 date, when she was a psychology student at Syracuse University and he was an emerging figure at Uptown Records.
Dickerson-Neal’s lawsuit is among dozens filed since November 2023, after Cassie Ventura first came forward with her own complaint — which was settled within a day. Combs, who is still fighting many of these cases, has dismissed the allegations as a coordinated “money grab.”
The series shows Dickerson-Neal reading a letter she says her mother wrote to Combs’s family in 1992, a year after the alleged assault.
The letter begins: “I’m writing to inform you of something that your son did to my daughter.”
It recounts how Dickerson-Neal’s mother learned of the alleged assault after hearing her daughter scream in her sleep, calling out “Puffy,” Combs’s stage name at the time.
The letter further alleges that Combs secretly recorded a sexual encounter with her and played such tapes at parties:
“Your son has made an obscene videotape of her… without her knowledge. Apparently, your son shows these tapes at parties on large screen televisions.”
Dickerson-Neal said she felt powerless as Combs rose to industry dominance and recalled becoming physically ill years later when she saw a giant Sean John billboard in Times Square showing him with a raised fist — an image meant to evoke Black Power.
“You’re raising your hand in victory while I’m living with trauma and defeat,” she said.
Combs has denied all allegations against him.
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