Rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has hit out at “sickening allegations” against him, saying they are being made by people “looking for a quick payday” and “enough is enough”.
Four women have launched sexual assault lawsuits against him since last month, including the latest which today accuses him of the “gang rape” of a girl who was 17 at the time.
The US music mogul, who also goes by the stage name Puff Daddy and P Diddy, said that for the last fortnight he has “sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy”.
He added: “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone magazine, Combs also vowed he will “fight for my name, my family and for the truth”.
The latest allegations surround an unnamed woman who alleges she was sexually abused by him when she was 17.
Combs, 54, is accused along with Harve Pierre, the president of Combs’ company Bad Boy Entertainment and a third unnamed person of sex trafficking and gang raping the teenager, who is referred to in the lawsuit as Jane Doe.
Taylor Swift crowned Time magazine’s Person of the Year
BTS: Four more members of K-pop group to begin South Korea military duty
Norman Lear, titan of US prime-time television, dies
It is alleged Combs and Pierre convinced the girl to take a private jet with Pierre and the third person to Combs’ recording studio in New York City.
Once there, the defendants plied her with drugs and alcohol and gang raped her, the lawsuit claims.
The complaint alleges the girl has photos proving that she was in Combs’ studio, with Combs, on the night in question.
In November, Combs settled a case brought by R&B singer and former partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura who alleged she was abused and raped by the star.
Be the first to get Breaking News
Install the Sky News app for free
Later that month, Combs was sued by Joie Dickerson-Neal who claims he drugged and sexually assaulted her when she was a psychology student at Syracuse University in January 1991 and filmed the attack.
But rejecting the claims as “made up and not credible”, a spokesperson for the star branded them “purely a money grab and nothing more”.
Another woman, identified as Liza Gardner, filed a third suit in which she claimed Combs and R&B singer Aaron Hall sexually assaulted her at Hall’s apartment in 1990 or 1991.
The alleged assault happened following an event at the offices of MCA Records, according to a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court.
It was filed one day before the New York Adult Survivors Act expired. The act allowed adult sexual assault survivors one year to sue regardless of when the original statute of limitations expired.
A spokesperson for Combs denied the allegations.