Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing a new lawsuit from a former fashion student April Lampros who says he sexually assaulted her multiple times between 1995 and the early 2000s.
The allegations follow days after Combs, 54, took “full responsibility” for beating his ex-girlfriend Cassandra “Cassie” Ventura after CCTV video footage of the 2016 incident in a Los Angeles hotel hallway was released.
In the new lawsuit – the seventh complaint of sexual assault filed against Combs in six months – Lampros said she met the rapper in 1994 while she was a college student at the Fashion Institue of Technology in New York. The rapper “love-bombed her” and his advances later “manifested into an aggressive, coercive and abusive relationship based on sex,” according to the federal complaint filed in New York City.
The lawsuit claims Lampros met Combs while she was an intern at Arista, which at the time was the parent company of the rapper’s label Bad Boy Entertainment. It alleges that in 1995 Lampros met Combs at a bar in New York where she “succumbed to pressure” to drink alcohol after “delusional and violent outbursts”.
Lampros claims she began to feel like the “walls were closing in on her” after sipping her drink and Combs escorted her back to a hotel. The lawsuit alleges Combs forced himself on Lampros despite her protests. “Ms. Lampros was being raped by Mr. Combs, and she soon passed out,” it says.
The lawsuit claims Combs assaulted Lampros a second time by physically forcing her to perform oral sex in a garage near his apartment in Manhattan. When the student attempted to distance herself from the rapper following the assault he allegedly gave her “gifts and empty promises” before turning “angry, threatening and forceful” and claiming he would destroy her career.
In 1996, Combs sexually assaulted Lampros for a third time when he forced her and his ex-girlfriend Kim Porter to take ecstasy and have sex together, the lawsuit alleges. Combs masturbated while he watched the women together before assaulting Lampros, the filing claims.
Lampros says she ended her relationship with Combs two years later. However, when she saw him at an event at the Rockefeller Center in the early 2000s he begged to see her again and she allowed him to come to her apartment where he kissed and touched her against her will, the lawsuit alleges.
In 2023, Lampros alleges an unidentified man approached her partner at the time and said he had seen a sexual video of Lampros and Combs years earlier. Lampros was informed “Mr. Combs apparently recorded them having sex without her knowing and showed it to multiple people,” the filing claims.
The Independent has contacted Combs’ representatives for comment.
The lawsuit was filed days after the release of footage showing Combs attacking singer Ventura in a Los Angeles hotel hallway in 2016. On Sunday (26 May), Combs posted a video admitting that he attacked Ventura, saying he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable”.
A lawsuit filed by Ventura in November alleging beatings and abuse was settled a day after it was filed, but Combs is currently facing a string of different civil lawsuits, which have accused him of sex trafficking, sexual abuse and rape. Combs has vehemently denied those allegations against him, while his lawyers have branded the lawsuits and their accusations as money grabs, “baseless” or “sickening”. The musician has not been formally charged.
The claim on Thursday was filed under a New York City law that allows accusers to file civil litigation during a limited window even if the alleged events happened long ago.
Rape Crisis offers support for those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk. If you are in the US, you can call Rainn on 800-656-HOPE (4673)
