Former music executive Daniel Evans recalls a chilling threat from his former boss, Sean "Diddy" Combs (then known as Puff Daddy), back in 1997. Evans claims Combs, at the height of his success with his Grammy-winning label Bad Boy Records, said, "I have so much money now that I could hire someone to kill you, and nobody would know. No one would miss you. No one would know anything."
Evans remembers this moment vividly, noting how the threat highlighted the corrupting influence of power and wealth. At that time, Combs had just been awarded $6 million in recognition of the label’s achievements, which included platinum-selling artists like The Notorious B.I.G.
By 1997, Combs's career reached its zenith, and his empire stretched beyond music to include fashion, alcohol, and even a TV network. However, nearly 30 years later, his reputation lies in tatters. He is currently awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, while also facing numerous lawsuits alleging drugging and assault during lavish parties, at high-end hotels, and within his own recording studio. Combs denies all allegations.
The BBC spoke with over 20 individuals who worked closely with Combs at Bad Boy Records, including former executives, assistants, and producers, to reveal troubling incidents from the label’s rise in the 1990s. Some former staff expressed concern after witnessing Combs engaging in sexual activities with women in the studio. In one instance, an employee reported that a young woman showed no reaction when Combs was seen in the room. Other staff members recounted requests made by Combs, such as asking an assistant to bring him condoms.
The BBC also heard reports that corporate funds were used to fly women in from across the US for sex, as requested by Combs and other employees.
Tony Buzbee, a U.S. attorney representing several alleged victims, says there was a pattern of increasingly severe behavior from Sean "Diddy" Combs over time, which dates back to the 1990s. One of Buzbee's clients claims Combs threatened to kill her in a manner similar to the threat Daniel Evans witnessed, while also accusing him of raping her on a bathroom floor at a promotional party for The Notorious B.I.G. in 1995. According to her lawsuit, Combs allegedly told her afterward, "Don’t tell anyone or you will disappear."
Combs's legal team denied the accusations, calling Buzbee more interested in media attention than the truth. They stated that the hip-hop mogul "never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone." His lawyers further argued that they had not been provided with enough details regarding the BBC's claims to effectively counter what they referred to as "fabricated accusations." They maintained that Mr. Combs would not dignify these "absurd" claims and expressed full confidence in the judicial process, asserting that the allegations were baseless.
Combs, 55, initially rose to fame as the founder of Bad Boy Records in 1993, quickly amassing wealth with a roster of top-tier artists. Prior to this, he had gained experience as a talent director at Uptown Records, starting at just 19.
Jimmy Maynes, a former colleague at Uptown, recalls Combs's ambition, with Combs telling him, “I want to be one of the biggest artists in the world, and it doesn’t matter if you believe me or not.” Maynes also remembers Combs’s volatile temperament, describing him as prone to fits of anger, often banging his hands on the desk and acting like a "bratty kid" when things didn't go his way.
After being fired from Uptown, Combs, at age 23, launched Bad Boy Records. Daniel Evans, a senior executive who worked at the label from 1994 to 1997, describes Combs as the hardest-working person he had ever met, always pushing those around him to match his high energy.
Combs became a fixture in New York’s social scene, hosting lavish parties that were the stuff of legend. These included events at nightclubs, beaches in Cancun, and notorious "White Parties" in the Hamptons, where guests adhered to an all-white dress code. Even President Donald Trump was a guest at some of these events in the '90s, with Evans recalling Trump sitting on a golden throne at Combs’s 30th birthday and declaring, "I’m the real King of New York!"
"We were all really young. I was 24 years old," reflects Evans, who was one of the label's original employees. "People wanted to party, have fun, hook up and build good memories."
But looking back, Evans says he is troubled by some of the things he witnessed about his boss's behaviour and the company culture.
In about 1995, he says he walked in on Combs having sex with a young woman at Daddy's House, Bad Boy's New York recording studio near Times Square.
"I was getting ready to go home for the night and looking for my jacket. Open the door and he's having sex with this girl," says Evans, who thought the studio was empty as it was silent. Combs swore and shouted at him to leave. "I thought I was getting fired," he says.
Evans remembers the young woman had been brought to the studio, presumably for a tour, by a party-promoter who was a friend of Combs. His boss seemed sober, while she was quiet and did not really talk, he says, wondering if she was high on drugs or just shy.
He says it did not seem unusual at the time. But recalling how the woman did not react when he entered the room, he says: "Knowing what I know now, there's a lot of speculation about what state she was in… usually both parties are very responsive during the act."
Felicia Newsome, the manager of Daddy's House recording studio between 1994 and 2000, says inappropriate conduct in the music industry as a whole was rife at the time.
"It was abnormal if somebody reported it, but it wasn't abnormal for it to be happening," she says.
Newsome says an employee once called her to the studio in the middle of the night because Combs was in his underwear, about to have sex with a model and another woman. He was demanding the staff member fetch him condoms, she recalls.
"I said to Puffy, don't ever ask anyone here to go and get condoms," says Newsome, who arrived while they were getting dressed again. "He replied: 'I didn't need anything like that, ma,' and never did it again."
Newsome, then in her 30s, says she found Combs reasonable and that he changed his behaviour when she challenged him. On one occasion, when the studio first opened in 1995, she says Combs was unhappy about the look of the countertops and called her a "bitch" in front of staff.
She says she demanded a public apology and temporarily shut the studio, asking him: "If I'm bringing women into this space, which is open 24 hours, how do you want to treat people?"
Combs responded that he wanted it to be an inclusive and safe environment, she says.
But while Newsome ran the studio with an "iron fist", she says other staff were less comfortable calling Combs out.
"Bad Boy Records was a crazy house with a lot of young people who wanted to touch the King's robes," she says.
Former staff say the label was run by twenty-something executives and a large number of interns, some of whom were of school age. There were often sexual relationships between employees and the interns, they say.
Evans remembers an uncomfortable moment with a 14-year-old in his own team, who he says propositioned him.
"She says to me, you work really hard. If you ever want to like, get loose, you and I should kick it… but not tonight, I have a curfew."
Evans says he sent her home and called the next day, telling her not to return to work. He did not report her, but two weeks later she was back working in the mailroom.
Artists and other employees at Combs's record label would sometimes also request for women to be flown in to have sex at the studio, the former executive says.
"If they had a [sexual] specialty in something, they would be flown in," says Evans, who told the BBC he knew because he controlled the budgets. Money for the flights would be set aside and logged under travel, he adds.
"It was probably like thousands of dollars," says Evans. "I don't think it happened all that often, but it was definitely a recording expense."
Evans says Combs's own requests were managed by his personal assistants. One told the BBC that Combs would often ask them to fly in women he was "messing around with" and put them up in hotels, though the assistant said they were not sex workers.
In the 2000s, the Daddy's House recording studio further changed, two former staff say, into a culture of "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll". Combs would regularly bring "random women" there to party, turning up with an entourage of dozens of people in "three white jeeps, with white rims and white leather seats", they say. Other artists would demand suitcases of Ciroc vodka and one even brought a monkey to a session, according to a former executive.
The studio is one of the locations where women have since accused Combs of drugging and raping them. Model Crystal McKinney alleges the mogul plied her with alcohol and marijuana before sexually assaulting her there in 2003. That same year, a woman alleges that Combs and two associates gang raped her at the studio when she was 17.
Combs's lawyers say he "looks forward to proving his innocence", adding that McKinney's claims are "without merit".
Many former staff members of Bad Boy Records are struggling to reconcile the allegations against Sean Combs with the man they knew. "These accusations are a surprise to me, as I'm sure they are to many of our circle," says Jeffery Walker, a close friend of Combs and a member of the label's original production team. "I've been to White Parties and studio sessions, and none of what he is accused of happened in my presence."
Daniel Evans, who once worked with Combs, was initially skeptical of some of the claims, but his doubts were shaken when he saw footage of Combs's ex-partner, Casandra Ventura, being violently assaulted by him in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. Ventura, who had been in a relationship with Combs for 10 years, was the first to file a lawsuit against him in November 2023, accusing him of abusing her, trapping her in a cycle of violence, and involving her in sex trafficking during their time together. Combs settled the lawsuit the following day for an undisclosed amount.
"It's not the first time I've seen that temper," Evans reflects, recalling the death threat he witnessed in 1997. "The man in that video with Cassie is almost identical to the guy who threatened the employee. So you start to wonder, has anything really changed?"
Over the years, Combs has constantly reinvented himself, shifting from Puff Daddy to P Diddy and, more recently, to "Love." "If I'm acting crazy, like 'ahhh!' that's Diddy. If I'm dancing smooth with a girl, that's Puff Daddy. And if I'm nervous or shy, that's Sean," he explained in a 2015 interview.
With more details expected to come to light during his trial in May, many who were once close to Combs are now questioning whether they ever truly knew him. "One could think he's just a disgusting human being, but that’s not my memory of Puff," says Jimmy Maynes, who grew up with Combs in Mount Vernon, New York. After a pause, he adds, "Or maybe money just gives people the freedom to be exactly who they really are, and he was that guy all along."
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