A woman has alleged that Sean “Diddy” Combs and his bodyguard sexually assaulted her some two decades ago and distributed video of their heinous attack, “including by selling it as pornography”, according to a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
“It’s a pain that reaches into your very core of who you are,” the woman, Thalia Graves, said at a press conference held hours after she filed suit against Combs.
“The combination of physical and emotional pain has created a cycle of suffering from which it is so hard to break free,” Graves also said. Throughout the press conference, Graves cried and wiped tears away from her eyes.
The Guardian typically does not disclose names of sexual assault accusers. Graves’s lead attorney, Gloria Allred, said that she has given permission to use her name.
Graves’s lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court, and comes roughly a week after Combs’s arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy counts. He remains in a Brooklyn jail after being denied bail.
Graves said she met Combs around late 1999. Her then boyfriend worked as an executive at Bad Boy Records, Combs’s music label.
Court papers state that Graves routinely visited her boyfriend at the Bad Boy studio in New York City and often went to events at Combs’s homes. Sometime around summer 2001, Combs allegedly called Graves about her boyfriend’s work at the label, saying he wanted to meet and discuss his purported performance problems.
Graves’s boyfriend “was determined to climb up the ladder at Combs’ record label and as his romantic partner, [she] was committed to helping him”, court papers explained. She agreed, and several hours later Combs came to her house; his security chief, Joseph Sherman, was driving.
When Graves got into Combs’s SUV, he gave her a glass of wine, which she drank. She started to feel dizzy and weak and “in retrospect, it is clear that Combs had caused a drug to be put into Plaintiff’s drink, as a few sips of wine had never impacted her that way”, court papers claim.
The SUV ultimately arrived at the Bad Boy studio in Manhattan and Graves followed Combs to a sofa in a private room. Combs sat alongside Graves and, as he spoke, she “lost consciousness”, according to court papers.
When Graves woke up, “she was naked, and her hands were tied behind her back with what felt like a plastic grocery bag”. Sherman allegedly grabbed Graves off the couch and “slammed” her face against a pool table.
Graves alleges that Combs came back into the room and raped her as she screamed out in pain, crying for help. She passed out and when she woke up, Sherman forced her to perform oral sex on him, the suit alleges.
Graves lost consciousness again and when she woke up, she dressed in a panic and fled, fearing the men would return. Graves called a livery driver, whom she and her family knew well, who picked her up.
The driver brought Graves to a hospital and implored her to report the rape, but she was “shaking and crying hysterically”, and couldn’t leave the car. Graves’s suit said she was “terrified” of what Combs might do to her and her family if she spoke out against him.
Graves told her then boyfriend but instead of helping, he told her not to report the attack, saying it would harm his career. After the assault, and “multiple times over the years”, Combs and Sherman contacted Graves and told her to keep quiet, “threatening repercussions” such as losing custody of her son.
Graves was fearful of staying in New York City while Combs resided there and “fled” to Pennsylvania, ultimately moving around over the years in an effort to stay away from him, court papers allege.
While Graves has suffered trauma following the alleged attack, it intensified dramatically in November 2023 – when Combs’s former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, filed suit against him alleging extensive abuse. Graves claims that her ex-boyfriend brought up Ventura’s suit, and revealed that Combs video-recorded his attack, court papers contend.
To Graves’s shock and horror, her ex said that Combs and Sherman had shown him and several men the video of the attack. He told Graves that Combs and Sherman “had a pattern and practice of non-consensually recording women engaging in sexual acts and making those videos available to the public, including by selling tapes as pornography”.
This lawsuit against Combs is the latest in a long line of legal woes: following Ventura’s lawsuit, which settled in just one day, several other accusers filed civil claims against him. The indictment against Combs appears to lean heavily on Ventura’s accusations.
Combs pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
Neither a representative for Combs nor his attorney immediately responded to a request for comment on Graves’s suit. It was not immediately clear whether Sherman has a contact for media inquiries or an attorney.
• Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
