As Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs awaits trial on charges of kidnapping, drugging and sex trafficking women, industry insiders who knew him during his meteoric rise in the 1990s speak exclusively to the BBC about their experiences.Daniel Evans, who worked at Bad Boy Records between 1994 and 1997, has told the BBC’s Investigations team that women were flown in for sex.He and other employees also recall a culture of big money, threats of violence and sex in the studios of Diddy’s Bad Boy record label. Diddy denies all the allegations.Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty hears about the findings from BBC Investigations Correspondent Rianna Croxford.The Diddy on Trial podcast is here to investigate the rumours, confront the theories, and give you the answers that you need.We also want YOU to be part of the conversation. Have you any burning questions about the cases or the upcoming trial? Heard a theory that doesn’t sit right with you? Get in touch now via WhatsApp: 0330 123 555 1.Archive from: Graham Norton Show on BBC 1 Entertainment Tonight MTV NewsPresenter: Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty Investigations Producer: Larissa Kennelly Series Producer: Laura Jones Sound Design: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Hattie Valentine Editor: Clare FordhamCommissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts Assistant Commissioner: Will Drysdale Commissioning Producer: Adam Eland Commissioning Assistant Producer: Rechmial Miller
Chapter 1: What are the allegations against Sean 'Diddy' Combs?
Sean Diddy Combs, aka Diddy, aka Puffy, or Brother Love, take your pick, is in a New York jail awaiting trial in May on charges of sex trafficking, transportation for prostitution, and racketeering with conspiracy. He denies all the allegations against him. In this episode, we're bringing you an exclusive from the BBC's investigations team.
They've been speaking to industry insiders who knew him during his meteoric rise in the 1990s. They say they recall a culture of big money, threats of violence, and sex in the studios of his Bad Boy record label.
If you're in the studio and you're recording, this is going to sound horrible, but, you know, you pay for a flight for a woman to come into the studio is the same as, like... ordering food to the studio.
Chapter 2: What was the culture like at Bad Boy Records?
Sean Combs' legal team has denied the accusation. Rhianna Croxford, the BBC's investigations correspondent, is with me today to tell me what she found. Hi, Rhianna. Hi. Well, first of all, when did you start investigating Diddy?
So I've been following the story since November 2023, when we all saw those headlines about Cassie Ventura. And then it wasn't really until he was arrested in September when my colleague and I started saying, should we do something about this? And one of the questions we had was, were there potential signs about his alleged conduct all the way back in the 90s when he first started his career?
So that's really one of the threads that we pulled out over the last few months. And why specifically focusing on the 90s? So there have been so many allegations against Sean Combs. And more than a dozen of those claims do date back to the 90s. In that era, we really see the creation and invention of Sean Combs, who back then was known as Puff Daddy.
We see him at the start of the decade go from this up and coming rising star at Uptown Records. And by the end of it, he's running his own Grammy award-winning music label, bringing in millions and millions of dollars. We also start to see the development of many of his personas.
Chapter 3: How did the 90s shape Sean Combs' career?
So there's been the Puff Daddy era. The P Diddy era. Then I dropped the P, then it was the Diddy era.
At the beginning of the 90s, he's this brash and bold music promoter. And by the end, he's got this reputation as a party king.
They don't want me to throw the parties no more. We ain't going to stop. We're going to keep on having fun, bringing people together from all walks of life. You're going to hear about my party. They're going to be shutting them down. They're going to probably be arresting me, doing all types of crazy things just because we want to have a good time.
He's throwing these massive celebrity bashes at New York nightclubs, on the beaches of Cancun, Mexico, but also in the Hamptons, his infamous all-white parties. It's also a decade where he has quite a few highs and lows. The label's really successful. It's... having all of these number one hits on the Billboard charts.
But he's also dealing with losses like the death of his friend, Biggie Smalls, who was the biggest star at the label back in the 90s.
I heard somebody say Biggie's car had got shot at. And then when I went there to the car, opened up the door and he was hunched over.
So there are lots of these challenges and it really is quite a career and character defining era.
Because he gets this kind of reputation for being the good time guy. He's slick, he's well dressed, he's got money and the business side of it is working really well. The music side of it, he's established himself as sort of a picker of stars. You mentioned Biggie Smalls there and you focused in on this particular period of his life. What did you find?
So we heard a lot about the makings of Diddy and how he changed, namely how money and power changed him. But we also spoke with a lot of insiders who worked at Bad Boy Records at the very beginning. And a lot of them described a culture back then of violent threats, of sex and also of impunity. I had an exclusive interview with this man called Daniel Evans.
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Chapter 4: What evidence suggests a hookup culture at Bad Boy?
You know what? She was still quiet. Yeah.
Did that seem unusual?
You know what? At the time, no. It didn't. But then again, you know, knowing what I know now, you know, there's a lot of speculation about what state she was in. You know? I mean, if you think about it, I mean... Usually both parties are very responsive during the act, so it's possible. It's possible.
And so you're saying that she was quite quiet when she arrived, but when you walked in on them, she also still seemed quite quiet then?
Yes.
And what do you mean by that, just so I'm clear?
Well, if two people are having sex, you know, you hear a lot of noise. I didn't hear any noise. I thought the room was empty. So when I walk in, I'm surprised to see.
And how do you feel looking back on it now in light of some of the allegations that we've been hearing about?
I still think it's a big leap to go from what happened that day to what's happening right now in the headlines. And again, I haven't spoken to him in 22 years, so I don't know you know, how he's evolved, per se. But I don't know, I guess I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, with all that money and everything that he's had over the years, you know, money does things to you.
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Chapter 5: Did women get flown in for sex at Bad Boy Records?
Absolutely. I mean, think back to the 90s. At the beginning, Diddy was an intern at another record label. Two years later, you know, after he gets fired from Uptown Records, he starts Bad Boy and becomes an overnight millionaire. And that's in 1993. Now, Daniel Evans describes an incident in 1997 when he says Diddy is getting really annoyed at an employee in the Bad Boy offices in New York.
Puffy, even to this day, is the hardest working man that I've ever met. And it was very tiring for me to see him work so hard. And he always wanted people to match his energy, which is frustrating because he could come off a little prickly about it. But it's his company, so of course he's gonna work hard to build it into something.
How do you feel that sudden rise and all of the money that was coming in, did it have an impact on Puffy, on Sean as a person? Do you feel like he changed during that time? Like over the first few years of the company?
Yeah, he did change. And, you know, it's not surprising. I mean, the label started off very small. They recorded Ready to Die, I think in his grandmother's basement or something like that. And then that became a multi-platinum hit. We had a lot of multi-platinum hits. during that time and Puffy just renewed his deal with Arista. He got a big payout.
As the weeks went on, you know, we saw a different side. He liked to threaten people.
What would he say?
I mean, there was one time where I have no idea what happened, but somebody messed up something. He was so pissed and he says to him, if you do this again, I could hire somebody to get rid of you and he wouldn't even know where to find you. I was like, what a weird thing to say, somebody. And at the same time, it was like, this is what money does to you.
It's like, you know everything, you know everybody, and you think that you can just do anything.
Do you feel like anyone in the office believed that you might be capable of that?
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Chapter 6: What were the troubling experiences reported by insiders?
Chapter 7: How did money and power influence Diddy's behavior?
I think that's going to be quite striking to a lot of people because when you think of Bad Boy, the way it was then packaged afterwards was this is the family. I mean, he referred to it as the family. And when Biggie died, that was how a lot of it was marketed. But you've told us women were being compared.
He's compared it to ordering a takeaway, flying women in from around the States and that coming from a corporate budget.
Yeah, so Daniel isn't the only former staffer to tell me that they walked in on Sean Combs having sex. So I've also spoken with a woman called Felicia Newsome. She was the studio manager of Daddy's House, Bad Boys recording studio, back in the 90s. She opened the studio and ran it for six years. And she told me about an incident where she was called by...
a studio worker in the middle of the night who was complaining that Sean Combs was in his underwear in the mailroom asking them to get him condoms because he was just about to have sex with a model and another woman. And this staffer was feeling really uncomfortable. So Felicia says she gets this phone call. She goes straight to the recording studio.
Diddy is still there, only this time he's a little bit more dressed up. And she basically has a go at him. She's like, don't you ever ask any of my employees at this studio to get you condoms again. And Felicia, for context, is a little bit older than the others. She's in her 30s. At the time, Diddy's in his 20s.
And she says he kind of responds quite humbly being like, I'm sorry, Ma, you know, I'll never do it again. And she said that he never did do it again. But what I found quite interesting speaking with Felicia was that she sort of came across as quite a strong female influence. She kind of called Diddy out on some of his behaviour.
And she talked, for instance, about when the studio was first opening in 1995. Diddy was really uncomfortable and hated the way that the countertops looked. So he basically starts insulting her and berating her in front of all of the studio workers because he's really upset about the look of these countertops.
And Felicia gets so annoyed that she demands a public apology from Diddy and also temporarily shuts down the studio. She's like, you know what, if you're going to disrespect me, I'm going to lock up this studio until I get an apology. And Diddy does apologise and doesn't do it again. So she talked about how... He could be reasonable if you pushed back and challenged his behaviour.
But she described as a comparison that Bad Boy Records was like a crazy house in that a lot of the newer employees who came in, many of them didn't want to challenge Diddy or push back at him because at that point he was so successful. He was a multi-millionaire and the label really was reaching new heights.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can we learn from the Bad Boy era?
So if he was travelling and out and about, you know, his assistants would be asked, you know, can you fly in this woman who I'm, quote, messing around with and put her up in this hotel so that I can see her? People just saw that as part of the lifestyle.
Yeah, and I suppose we're really only beginning to have meaningful conversations about music industry, workplace culture now. I mean, throughout this entire thing, people have been questioning whether you should have 3am studio sessions, whether you should, you know, go from the club straight to your place of work.
So in the 90s, I mean, if we're having those conversations now, they probably weren't present there at all. But you spoke to Daniel while you were in New York as you went out there investigate it. And he gives a picture of what it was like at the time. Was it easy to get him to open up to you? What was the process like?
No, I mean, my colleague and I have contacted more than 350 people as part of this investigation. Some people were open to talking. You know, a lot of people are still fearful about speaking out against someone like Sean Combs, but also just more broadly worried about tarnishing the legacy of the label, especially people who... got their starts there.
But, you know, I've met with Daniel quite a few times. I was out in New York for quite some time working on a different project. So, you know, we would meet up a few times and sort of talk about his experiences. And after some time, yeah, he did feel comfortable kind of going on camera and sharing his own story and his own experience about being at the label.
This investigation has painted a picture of Bad Boy that Diddy didn't paint himself. So you've put these... accusations, allegations to his team. What have they said?
That's right. We wrote to his legal team and they've given us this statement saying that the BBC has failed to provide them with any substantive details about these accusations. And they say that these allegations lack context and credibility.
They said it was impossible for Mr Combs to present any facts and counter what they described as fabricated accusations, saying that this story is clearly designed to push a one-sided prejudicial narrative. They also said that Mr Combs cannot dignify every publicity stunt or absurd claim with a response, and they said he has full confidence in the judicial process where the truth will prevail.
saying that these accusations are pure fiction.
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