Diddy accuser speaks out for the first time on his sexual assault allegations: ‘I felt powerless’

CNN

By Elizabeth Wagmeister, CNN

(CNN) — An anonymous John Doe sat down with CNN on Tuesday to share, for the first time, what he described as the traumatic toll the alleged abuse he endured by Sean “Diddy” Combs has taken on his life.

Doe initially filed his complaint against Combs on October 14, alleging that he was drugged and sodomized by the embattled music mogul at one of his infamous White Parties nearly two decades ago.

Speaking anonymously on camera about his claims in his civil suit, the accuser said this week that he has harbored the secret of his alleged abuse from 2007 – not even telling his then-wife because of the shame he associated with the alleged incident.

“The full gravity of it lives with me to this day,” Doe told CNN in an interview conducted at his home in New Jersey. “It affects every single thing you do for the rest of your life.”

Doe is the first civil accuser of Combs to publicly speak to the media in an interview.

According to his lawsuit, Doe was employed by a private security firm in 2007, when he was asked to work at one of Combs’ White Parties at the producer’s estate in East Hampton, New York.

Combs provided Doe with two alcoholic drinks throughout the night that he believes were laced with GHB and ecstasy, the complaint states. After consuming the second drink, Doe started feeling “extremely ill,” per the suit. Combs allegedly approached Doe at this time and expressed what Doe “initially interpreted as concern,” the lawsuit states, before he forcibly pushed him into an empty vehicle. Inside the vehicle, Doe claims Combs held him down – despite his pleas for help – and sodomized him. In his lawsuit, Doe is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

There were a number of inconsistencies between the details shared by Doe in his interview with CNN and the original complaint filed in October. The original suit says the assault took place in 2006, not 2007, and that Doe had never been married. In 2006, Combs’ White Party was held in St. Tropez; in 2007, it was held in the Hamptons, which is where Doe’s allegations take place. After CNN pointed out the discrepancies, Doe’s attorneys filed an amended complaint with the court, changing those details and acknowledging mistakes were made in the rush to file.

“I wasn’t able to stand,” Doe told CNN of allegedly being drugged with the two spiked alcoholic drinks, which he said “felt more like 15 drinks.”

He added: “It was just an amazing level of incapacitation that I had never experienced before and I felt powerless.”

After the alleged assault, he said he struggled to leave the party due to the effect of the alleged drugs in his system and the pain his body was in. Doe then reported what happened to his supervisor, according to his lawsuit. Speaking to CNN, he said that he was never asked to work for the security firm again, after reporting his alleged abuse by Combs.

“He just dismissed it and said, ‘I’ll talk to him,’” Doe said, recalling a conversation where he told his manager that Combs had sexually assaulted him. “After that, he didn’t talk to me again, he cut me out of everything … I was totally blacklisted after that. I had to find a different field.”

Today, Doe no longer works as a security guard. His marriage also ended as a result of the alleged abuse, he said, because of the trauma he endured that has negatively impacted his relationships.

In his lawsuit, he said he has struggled with emotional pain and mental health issues in the years since.

For the first time, Doe also revealed that a celebrity witnessed the alleged abuse. Without naming the famous person he recognized, he told CNN, “There was one high-profile individual who saw what happened and found it amusing.”

Representatives for Combs declined to comment on Doe’s allegations on Tuesday. But at the time of the original complaint in October 2024, his lawyers issued a blanket statement to CNN regarding the complaint and others filed on the same day: “Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman.”

Doe’s complaint was filed along with a slew of other anonymous accusers who are all represented by attorneys Tony Buzbee and Andrew Van Arsdale. The lawyers have said that they are representing at least 120 accusers who plan to file against Combs; thus far, they have filed 20 civil suits.

Following CNN’s publication of this story, attorneys for Combs responded to Doe’s amended complaint in a statement to CNN.

“After Buzbee was exposed this week for pressuring clients to bring bogus cases against Mr. Combs, and after public records showed that — contrary to his allegations —there was no white party in the Hamptons in 2006, Buzbee amended this complaint to walk back the allegations and now claim a different day and wholly different year,” Combs’ attorneys wrote in their statement.

Buzbee previously denied accusations of pressuring clients to come forward,.

“This allegation is patently ridiculous… What we won’t do is pursue a case that we don’t believe has merit,” he told CNN in an email. “We don’t pressure people nor do we need to.”

Combs is currently federal custody as he awaits trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations of wrongdoing in roughly 30 civil lawsuits that have been filed against him in the past year. Several of those lawsuits include allegations from accusers like Doe who have chosen to file under pseudonyms.

Regarding his decision to remain anonymous, Doe said, “I have a semblance of a life, a very quiet life. I would prefer what little is left of it to be left alone.”

“Nothing could give me back the person I was before that evening.”

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