Last month Sean Combs — the hip-hop mogul known alternately as Puff Daddygame ape, Puffy, Diddy and Love — was arrested on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty.
The indictment was a striking fall from grace seemingly put in motion approximately a year prior, when one of his ex-girlfriends, the singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit against him, accusing him of rape and physical abuse. (That case was settled in one day.) A lawsuit filed in late September is the eighth over the past year by a woman accusing Combs of sexual assault; three other lawsuits have made allegations of sexual misconduct.
On this week’s Popcast, a discussion of Combs’s criminal and civil cases, the role of the court of public opinion, and how the entertainment press covers morally complicated figures.
Guests:
Ben Sisario, The New York Times’s music business reporter
Julia Jacobs, culture reporter for The New York Times
Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporter
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