Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Accused Of Rape, Sharing Of Assault Video

A woman has accused Sean “Diddy” Combs and his bodyguard of drugging and raping her in the summer of 2001 and distributing footage of the alleged crime, according to a graphic lawsuit filed in New York City on Tuesday.

Thalia Graves’ lawsuit adds to a litany of rape and abuse claims against the media mogul and comes after his recent arrest in New York City on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Graves, who was 25 in 2001 and dating one of Combs’ employees, an executive at Bad Boy Records, claimed that Combs requested a meeting with her to discuss her boyfriend’s performance.

Upon arrival, Combs offered Graves a glass of wine, which she presumes was spiked because she soon felt “lightheaded, dizzy, and physically weak” after just a few sips. Then he and bodyguard Joseph Sherman, also known as Big Joe, took her to the Bad Boy studio in New York City, where she eventually lost consciousness and the rape occurred, the lawsuit says.

[Editor’s note: Descriptions in the lawsuit are graphic, and some readers may find them disturbing.]

According to the 26-page complaint, when Graves regained consciousness, she was naked and bound at the wrists by what felt like a grocery bag. When Graves screamed for help, Sherman slammed Graves’ head against a pool table, and Combs then entered the room naked.

Graves, who is 4 feet, 11 inches tall and, at the time, weighed 103 pounds, claimed in the lawsuit that Combs put lubricant on his penis, bent her over the pool table, causing her feet to be lifted off the floor, and sodomized her. When she tried to escape his grasp, the suit says, he would smash her head onto the pool table.

“During the brutal attack, Plaintiff vomited into her mouth and on the table. At one point, she involuntarily defecated. Combs was undeterred. He wiped himself off, applied more lubricant, and without any acknowledgement of Plaintiff’s distress, proceeded to vaginally penetrate Plaintiff,” the complaint continued, adding that Graves again lost consciousness as Combs assaulted her.

When she regained consciousness, she had been moved to the couch, and Sherman stood in front of her unclothed. He slapped her and forced his penis into her mouth. Then he did it again, and Graves lost consciousness again.

When she next awoke, she was alone, in extreme pain and felt liquid dripping from inside her. She quickly got dressed and fled, calling a driver her family was familiar with to pick her up. The driver tried to convince Graves to be tested for evidence of rape, but she was “‘shaking and crying hysterically’ and terrified of what Combs would do to her and her family if she reported him,” according to the complaint.

Graves claimed that her then-boyfriend convinced her not to report the rape since it could hurt his career. In the aftermath of the assault, Graves said, she suffered from depression, anxiety/panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, and often moved around to avoid living near Combs. She also claimed that Combs and Sherman threatened her multiple times, including saying she’d lose custody of her son, to deter her from reporting the alleged crime.

Last November, Graves’ ex-boyfriend told her that Combs and Sherman recorded and published the alleged crime, an act often described as revenge porn.

The suit alleges that Sherman, who is the founder of Rhymes N Dimes, a company that sells pornography, and Combs “had a pattern and practice of nonconsensually recording women engaging in sexual acts and making those videos available to the public, including by selling tapes as pornography.”

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges she has reason to believe copies of the video of her assault were sold.

“Any progress Plaintiff had made in healing from the attack over the years was dramatically reversed on or around November 27, 2023, when she learned for the first time that Combs and Sherman had video-recorded the horrific rape twenty-two years before and had shown the video to multiple men, seeking to publicly degrade and humiliate both Plaintiff and her boyfriend,” the complaint alleges, adding that Graves contemplated ending her life.

The month that Graves learned that the alleged crime was recorded was when lawsuits accusing Combs of sexual abuse and violence began to emerge. An ex-girlfriend, singer Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, filed a bombshell suit on Nov. 16 accusing him of rape, domestic violence and more. Several more lawsuits, which HuffPost has compiled in a list of his legal battles, followed.

Combs was arrested earlier this month after a federal grand jury indicted him in New York City on sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He has pleaded not guilty and has been denied bond twice. He has been jailed in Brooklyn.

Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.

If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for mental health support. Additionally, you can find local mental health and crisis resources at dontcallthepolice.com. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention.