Near the peak of the intrigue surrounding Sean “Diddy” Combs last year, a purported memoir by Kim Porter, the late mother of four of his children, rose to the top of the Amazon best-seller list. Kim’s Lost Words recounted a supposed array of startling sexual adventures and violence, and ended with Porter seeming to predict her own murder at her partner’s hands. It was independently published by Chris Todd, a little-known but enthusiastic peddler of celebrity conspiracy; Amazon quickly pulled the book, which a friend of Porter’s described to me at the time as “all lies.”
In the lead-up to his trial this spring on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, Combs was primarily fighting his criminal case, but his lawyers also began combatting the cottage industry of media projects that had sprung out of the allegations against him. Following his acquittal on the most severe counts he faced—he was convicted on two prostitution charges and remains in jail ahead of his sentencing in October—he has ratcheted up that offensive. Combs last week amended a defamation complaint he had filed in January to seek at least $100 million in damages from Todd affiliate Courtney Burgess, an itinerant social media player who advertises ties to the music industry, as well as Burgess’s attorney and the parent company of a news outlet that aired Burgess’s claims.
According to Combs’s suit, Burgess, lawyer Ariel Mitchell, and Nexstar Media’s NewsNation undertook a scheme to broadcast lies about the mogul. Mitchell said in an interview with the outlet in September that “there already have been tapes leaking around Hollywood, being shopped around to individuals in Hollywood,” and the host replied, “It sounds like there was probably a lot of hidden cameras as well.” Burgess has claimed that Porter provided him with a draft of her memoir as well as videos depicting Combs sexually assaulting inebriated celebrities and minors, and he has said that he was the source of the memoir edited and published by Todd. (Todd previously told me, “I stand by this book 100%”; when reached now for comment on the book’s removal from Amazon, he suggested I interview Burgess. Mitchell didn’t return a request for comment on her or Burgess’s behalf; her attorney recently moved to dismiss the suit against her. Nexstar declined to comment.)
“Anybody who read about the trial as it was going on,” Combs’s attorney Teny Geragos said in an interview this week, “will know by now that none of what was publicly alleged or part of these conspiracy theories prior to the trial are true.”
Geragos said that Combs’s efforts to push back on the prevailing social media chatter should be considered separate from his criminal fight—an attempt to protect his legacy and family. “After the sentencing,” she said, “we will continue to focus on clearing out all the misinformation that was spread about him.” Combs has also sued NBCUniversal and Peacock over their documentary Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, in which the R&B singer Al B. Sure! claims that Porter, with whom he had a child, was murdered. (The Los Angeles coroner’s office said in early 2019 that Porter’s death resulted from lobar pneumonia. A representative for Peacock didn’t return a request for comment, but the company has moved to dismiss the suit.)
Simultaneously, an effort to secure a pardon for Combs is apparently underway. Another of his attorneys, Nicole Westmoreland, recently told CNN, “It’s my understanding that we’ve reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon.” Donald Trump, a regular companion of Combs’s in the New York ’90s, has seemed to enjoy toying with the idea, telling Newsmax, “I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great and he seemed like a nice guy.”
Still, Trump added, “When I ran for office, he was very hostile,” noting how that would make pardoning Combs “more difficult to do.”
Geragos declined to comment on any effort to secure a pardon. For his part, Marc Agnifilo, Combs’s lead attorney, said in an interview with CBS News that he has “nothing to do with a possible pardon” and has “had conversations with nobody.”
To a large degree, Burgess’s and Mitchell’s claims reflected the overall tenor of the discussion around Combs since he was first accused of sexual and physical abuse by his ex-girlfriend Casandra “Cassie” Ventura in November 2023. (Combs and Ventura quickly settled Ventura’s lawsuit. Combs denied any wrongdoing in connection to Ventura’s claims but apologized after video surfaced of him beating her in the hallway of a hotel.) Combs’s decades of fame and his bountiful photographs with other celebrities made him a natural subject for the legions of streamers, podcasters, and social media personalities who have proliferated in recent years. The terms “Diddy parties” and “freak-offs” became catch-all slang for sexual deviance. When the verdict in Combs’s trial arrived last month, the YouTuber Armon Wiggins poured baby oil on himself amid the celebrations, a reference to the product frequently invoked by prosecutors for having been stocked by Combs. (Wiggins soon issued an Instagram apology for the stunt.)
