Embattled rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs has sold his controlling shares of media company Revolt months after stepping down as the company’s chairman amid multiple civil lawsuits for alleged sexual abuse.
The move comes just weeks after the release of CTTV footage that showed Combs attacking an ex-girlfriend at a California hotel, for which he has publicly apologized.
Detavio Samuels, the CEO of Revolt, did not address the controversies surrounding Combs when he explained the sale, which sees its employees become the company’s largest shareholder, to Variety
“This is something that we’ve been looking to do, waiting to do, believing that the people who give this company their blood, sweat and tears should have some sort of upside opportunity if and when we win,” Detavio Samuels, the company's CEO, told Variety.
He said that data shows that "companies that have incentive pools for their employees outperform the rest."
"They perform better financially, they perform better with company morale and culture and they perform better as it relates to retention,” he said.
The shocking hotel video footage was captured in March 2016. It showed Diddy chasing his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura down the hallway before attacking her by the elevators before he attempted to drag her back to his hotel room.
The following day, he shared an apology video on Instagram saying his behavior was “inexcusable” and that he took “full responsibility for his actions in the video”.
Federal agents with US Homeland Security also raided two of the rapper’s houses in Los Angeles and Miami on 25 March amid a reported investigation into sex trafficking.
Combs, 54, has strongly denied all of the allegations against him. His attorneys have branded the lawsuits and their accusations as money grabs, “baseless” or “sickening.”
The rapper has not been formally charged or accused by federal prosecutors of any crime.
The slew of allegations in lawsuits against Combs date as far back as the 1990s, when he founded his music label, Bad Boy Records.
Last year, Combs's former partner Cassie Ventura, a singer and dancer who also worked with the entertainer, alleged he abused her for years just before the expiration of the New York Adult Survivors Act.
In a lawsuit filed against Combs on 26 February 2024 in New York, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, alleged he was “subjected to unwanted advances by associates of Diddy at his direction” and that he was forced to engage in relations with the sex workers Combs had hired.
The producer, who worked for Combs between September 2022 and November 2023 claimed Combs sexually harassed, drugged, and threatened him for more than a year.
In November 2023, Joie Dickerson-Neal filed a lawsuit alleging that Combs drugged her, sexually assaulted her, and secretly recorded the assault while she was a college student in 1991, NBC News reported, citing the filing.
Since November, three more women have come forward with lawsuits in the Southern District of New York alleging that they were sexually assaulted by Combs, according to NBC News.
Two of the women said they were teenagers at the time of the alleged assaults.
In December, Combs was hit with another lawsuit which claimed he had drugged and gang-raped a 17-year-old girl in 2003.
In May, after the shocking CCTV footage of Combs attacking Venture was published, former model Crystal McKinney filed a new lawsuit claiming the rapper sexually assaulted her at his recording studio in New York City in 2003.
Days after McKinney’s lawsuit was filed, April Lampros – who met Diddy while she was a student – claimed Diddy had sexually assaulted multiple times between 1995 and the early 2000s.
Combs has strongly denied all the accusations against him and vowed to “fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”
