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The controversial Netflix docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning had already been called a “shameful hitpiece” by the disgraced mogul’s lawyers after a trailer was released on Monday.
Now after all four episodes have been dropped on Netflix, it’s been called “grimly necessary” and a “relentless” portrait of “a terrifying individual” by critics.
The series, produced by Combs’s longtime rival Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, chronicles his rise to fame and details some of the allegations made against him over the years.
It features a wide range of voices, including former members of his inner circle, several former employees and associates, childhood friends, artists who were signed to his label Bad Boy Records, two jurors from his federal trial, and several people who have filed civil lawsuits against Combs, some accusing him of sexual assault – allegations that Combs has denied.
The documentary comes several months after the Bad Boy Records founder was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, but not guilty of the more serious sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges against him. In October, Combs, who had pleaded not guilty to all of the charges, was sentenced to 50 months in prison.
Combs is currently serving his sentence at Fort Dix prison complex in New Jersey, and is appealing both his conviction and his sentence. He is still facing dozens of civil lawsuits, accusing him of sexual abuse. He has denied all of the allegations against him in the lawsuits.
After the series premiered on Tuesday, Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Combs, said in a statement that “we’re not going to comment on individual claims being repeated in the documentary,” adding: “Many of the people featured have longstanding personal grievances, financial motives, or credibility issues that have been documented for years.
“Several of these stories have already been addressed in court filings, and others were never raised in any legal forum because they’re simply not true,” he added. “The project was built around a one-sided narrative led by a publicly admitted adversary, and it repeats allegations without context, evidence, or verification.
“Sean Combs will continue to address legitimate matters through the legal process, not through a biased Netflix production,” he said.
‘We saw both sides of it and came to our conclusions’
Two jurors from Combs’s federal trial are interviewed in the series, and speak out for the first time since the 12-person jury delivered a split verdict earlier this year.
“When we were in the deliberation room and we’ve come to an agreement and we’re only saying that he’s guilty for these two counts, my words exactly were: ‘Oh s-h-i-t,’” one of the jurors, a woman identified as Juror 160 said.
During the two-month trial this summer, prosecutors accused Combs of sex-trafficking women by coercing them into participating in drug-fueled sex marathons with male escorts. Central to their case were allegations from Combs’s former girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who testified that over their decade-long relationship, Combs physically abused, coerced and blackmailed her into taking part in these sexual encounters.
Combs’s lawyers acknowledged past instances of domestic violence but denied that any coercion or sex trafficking occurred, insisting that all the sexual activity was consensual.
After three days of deliberation, the jury – made up of eight men and four women –reached a verdict and convicted Combs on the two prostitution-related counts.
In the series, Juror 160, who said that she belonged to “that generation who basically grew up listening” to Combs’s music but was not a “personal fan of his”, was asked whether she believed that Combs was a “violent person”. She said that based on the 2016 hotel surveillance video of Combs beating Ventura that was shown to the jury in court, “he can be.”
“It’s unforgivable, honestly, you can’t beat that small girl like that the way he did,” Juror 160 said. But, she added: “You can say he was a terrible person, but domestic violence wasn’t one of the charges.”
The other juror interviewed, a man identified as Juror 75 who said he had “zero knowledge” of Combs before the trial, said that during the trial, he felt “confused” by Ventura and Combs’s relationship.
Asked whether he saw any evidence of “force, fraud or coercion between Cassie and Sean”, the juror responded: “That was a very, very interesting relationship. This is two people in love, they are overly in love. You cannot explain. She wanted to be with him. He took her for granted. He never thought that she would leave him. So it’s like both hands clapping together. You cannot clap with one hand. Both hands, then you get the noise.”
Juror 75 pointed to the affectionate text messages between Ventura and Combs after the hotel assault that were presented by the defense during trial.
“The very next day, the following day, you see how they’re getting back together and exchanging text messages and like nothing ever happened,” he said. “So now we are confused … What’s going on here? He’s beating her, and the next minute they’re going on dinners and trips. It’s like going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
“That’s my answer,” the juror said. “I mean, if you don’t like something, you completely get out. You cannot have it both ways. Have the luxury and then you complain about it, I don’t think so.”
Asked if he believed that justice had been served in this case Juror 75, said, “100%,” adding: “We saw both sides of it and we came with our conclusions.”
‘They were starstruck’
One of Combs’s former employees featured in the docuseries is Capricorn Clark, who was his former assistant and Bad Boy Entertainment executive. Clark, who testified against him at trial and told jurors that Combs once kidnapped her and threatened her life, said in the documentary that she felt that the jury “didn’t believe anything” she was saying.
“I’m watching them as they relate to him, I think they all kinda had a like for Puff, whenever they looked over at Puff it was like buddy-buddy,” she said. “They were starstruck.”
‘I don’t even know if I was raped’
In the third episode, singer Aubrey O’Day, a former member of Combs’s girl band Danity Kane, alleged that Combs sent her sexually explicit emails during the filming of MTV’s Making the Band.
In the documentary, O’Day read an explicit email she said Combs sent her, and also alleged that he emailed her photos of his penis.
“I dont wanna just fuck you. I wanna turn you out,” the alleged email read in part. “I can see you being with some motherfucker that you tell what to do. I make my woman do what I tell her to do, and she loves it.”
In the interview, O’Day says: “This is your boss at your work sending you that email.” She continued: “What happens in real life to anyone else? Your boss gets fired. Six months later, I was fired.
“I absolutely felt that I was fired for not participating sexually,” she added.
In the series, O’Day also discussed an affidavit from a civil case in which a woman alleged that in 2005 she accidentally walked into a room where she alleged that she saw O’Day, who she said looked “very inebriated” and naked from the waist down, being sexually assaulted by Combs and another man.
O’Day said that she had no “recollection of this”..
“Does this mean I was raped? Is that what this means? I don’t even know if I was raped,” she said. “And I don’t want to know.”
‘Sometimes violent things happen to you’
The documentary also features allegations from former Bad Boy Records associates, including Kirk Burrowes, who co-founded Bad Boy Entertainment with Combs, that Combs was involved in the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur, among other allegations. Combs has always denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.
“Sean was insanely jealous of Biggie and ’Pac’s friendship,” Burrowes said. “For Sean, being a marketer – you’re a manipulator. And there’s envy for people who have success [and] fame, with no manipulation.”
He added: “With Sean, sometimes you’re humiliated. Sometimes you’re made an example of. Sometimes violent things happen to you. Through the years, a lot of bad things happened to good friends.”
“I think that Sean now in my mature mind had a lot to do with the death of Tupac,” Burrowes said.
‘Dirtiest of dirty business’
The docuseries also includes previously unseen footage of Combs filmed in the six days before Combs was arrested in September 2024, as the federal investigation was closing in.
According to the documentary, Combs had a videographer documenting him during this time, and the film-makers say that they obtained the footage after Combs’s arrest.
The documentary opens with some of that footage, showing Combs in a New York hotel room speaking with his lawyer on the phone, discussing the public perception against him on social media, just six days before his arrest and as the federal investigation was closing in.
“We have to find somebody that will work with us, that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business of media and propaganda,” says Combs. “We’re losing.”
Days later, Combs was arrested and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
The director of the docuseries, Alexandria Stapleton, has said that the footage “came to us” and that they “obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights”.
“One thing about Sean Combs is that he’s always filming himself, and it’s been an obsession throughout the decades,” she said. “We also reached out to Sean Combs’s legal team for an interview and comment multiple times, but did not hear back.”
Stapleton has said that she hopes the documentary “is a wake-up call for how we idolize people, and to understand that everybody is a human being”.
On Monday, the eve of the documentary release, CNN reported that Combs’s lawyers sent Netflix a cease-and-desist letter, demanding it be withdrawn.
“Netflix relied on stolen footage that was never authorized for release,” Engelmayer, Combs’s spokesperson said on Monday. “As Netflix and CEO Ted Sarandos know, Mr Combs has been amassing footage since he was 19 to tell his own story, in his own way. It is fundamentally unfair, and illegal, for Netflix to misappropriate that work.
“Netflix is plainly desperate to sensationalize every minute of Mr Combs’s life, without regard for truth, in order to capitalize on a never-ending media frenzy,” Engelmayer said. “If Netflix cared about truth or about Mr Combs’s legal rights, it would not be ripping private footage out of context – including conversations with his lawyers that were never intended for public viewing. No rights in that material were ever transferred to Netflix or any third party.”
He also told the New York Times that Combs had been working on his own documentary before his arrest, and had been in discussions with Netflix. But Engelmayer reportedly told the Times that the project was held up over how much creative control Combs would have.
In his statement on Monday, Engelmayer also said that it was “staggering” that Netflix handed creative control to Jackson, who he described as a “longtime adversary with a personal vendetta who has spent too much time slandering Mr Combs”.
