UPDATE (July 31): Universal Music Group (UMG) has been dropped as a defendant from the lawsuit, according to a joint court filing by the attorneys for plaintiff Crystal McKinney and UMG on Monday (July 29).
PREVIOUSLY (May 21): Sean “Diddy” Combs has been accused of sexual assault in a new lawsuit filed by a woman who claims the hip-hop mogul sexually assaulted her in a recording studio bathroom in 2003.
According to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in New York by attorneys Michelle Caiola and Jonathan Goldhirsch, Crystal McKinney claims she met Combs at a Men’s Fashion Week dinner in Manhattan on the invite of a fashion designer she knew. While attending the dinner, during which she alleges that Combs came onto her “in a sexually suggestive manner,” she says he invited her to hang out at his recording studio.
After arriving at the studio, where McKinney says several other men were present, she claims she was given alcohol and a marijuana joint that she later came to believe was laced “with a narcotic or other intoxicating substance.” She says Combs then led her to a bathroom, where he allegedly began kissing her without her consent before shoving her head in his crotch and forcing her to perform oral sex over her protests.
McKinney, who was then working as a professional model, claims that she later “awakened in shock” to find herself in a taxi heading back to the apartment of the designer who had invited her to the dinner. At this point, she “realized that she had been sexually assaulted by Combs,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit adds that following the alleged assault, McKinney’s “modeling opportunities quickly began to dwindle and then evaporated entirely” after Combs allegedly “blackballed” her in the industry. After falling into “a tailspin of anxiety and depression,” she claims she attempted suicide in 2004 and later fell into drug and alcohol addiction to cope with the trauma of the alleged assault.
The new lawsuit was filed under the NYC Gender Motivated Violence Act, which created a two-year lookback window beginning in March 2023 that allows survivors of gender-motivated violence to sue their abusers for alleged incidents that occurred outside the statute of limitations.
Also named as defendants in the lawsuit are Combs’ label Bad Boy Records, its parent company Universal Music Group and Combs’ clothing company Sean John Clothing, all of which McKinney claims “enabled” the alleged assault by “actively maintaining and employing Combs in a position of power” despite the fact that they allegedly “knew or should have known that Combs posed a risk of sexual assault.”
McKinney is asking for damages for mental and emotional injury, distress, pain and suffering and injury to her reputation as well as punitive damages, among other relief.
Representatives for Combs, Bad Boy Entertainment, Sean John Clothing and Universal Music Group did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Tuesday’s complaint marks the sixth sexual misconduct lawsuit to have been filed against Combs over the past several months. The torrent of lawsuits was kicked off by a November 2023 complaint filed by his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who alleged repeated abuse by the mogul over the course of more than a decade.
Though Ventura’s lawsuit was settled just one day later, a 2016 security video published by CNN on Friday (May 17) showed Combs physically assaulting Ventura in a hotel hallway. Though Combs denied all of Ventura’s initial allegations, in the wake of the video’s release he issued an apology calling his behavior in the clip “inexcusable.” L.A. District Attorney George Gascón later released a statement saying that Combs could not be prosecuted over the assault due to the statute of limitations.
Combs has strongly denied all allegations of sexual assault made against him. On Dec. 6, he released a statement that read: “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
In November, Combs stepped down as chairman of his digital media company Revolt before reportedly selling his stake in the company in March. Also in March, federal agents conducted raids of Combs’ L.A. and Miami homes “in connection” with a federal sex trafficking investigation, according to CNN.
