Note: This article contains references to alleged sexual harassment that some readers may find disturbing.
Sean “Diddy” Combs is being sued by a woman who claims he and one of his employees sexually assaulted her in 2001. The woman, Talia Graves, filed the complaint today (September 24) in New York federal court.
According to the lawsuit, obtained by Pitchfork, Graves met Diddy “in late 1999 or early 2000 through his then-boyfriend, who was an executive. [Diddy’s] Bad boy [Records]”. She claims that “around the summer of 2001” Diddy called her and told her that “she wanted to meet with him in person to discuss her boyfriend’s alleged performance issues” at the record label. He says he agreed to the meeting, and Diddy and Joseph “Big Joe” Sherman, “his bodyguard and chief of security,” picked him up in an SUV.
In the SUV, Graves accepted a glass of wine from Diddy, but “she began to feel light-headed and physically weak,” the complaint states. “In retrospect, it is clear that Combs laced Plaintiff’s drink with drugs, as a few sips of wine never affected him in that way.”
Eventually, Graves, Diddy and Sherman arrived at Diddy’s New York recording studio, and Graves claims he passed out while in Diddy’s “personal lounge and office at Bad Boy Studios.” When she regained consciousness, Graves “was naked and her hands were bound behind her back with what appeared to be a plastic grocery bag,” the lawsuit states. She says she “yelled for help,” at which point “Sherman lifted her off the couch and slammed her face down on what appeared to be a pool table.”
“Immediately thereafter, Combs entered the room naked” and sexually and vaginally assaulted Graves, the lawsuit alleges. She says she screamed for help during the alleged attack before losing consciousness. When she regained consciousness, she claims she saw Sherman “standing in front of her with his bare penis in his face.” Then the bodyguard “slapped [her] in her face and forced his penis into her mouth,” according to the lawsuit.
After passing out and regaining consciousness, Graves “quickly got dressed and left the studio room” and “called the driver” to pick him up. “The driver drove her to the hospital and tried to convince her to report the rape and get a rape kit, but she couldn’t get out of the car, ‘shaking and crying hysterically’ and terrified of what Combs would do to her and her family.” if she reported him,” according to the complaint.