Sean “Diddy” Combs and his youngest son Christian “King” Combs, 26, have been named in a new lawsuit that accuses the younger Combs of sexually assaulting a woman who was working on a luxury yacht chartered by the Combs family for a 2022 winter trip in St. Martin.
The 31-page complaint, filed late Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, comes after a recent series of lawsuits alleging that Sean Combs, 54, sexually assaulted four women and one man on separate occasions between 1990 and 2023. Combs, whose homes were raided last week as part of a federal sex trafficking probe, has denied the allegations, calling them shakedowns.
The latest lawsuit filed by lawyers Tyrone A. Blackburn and Rodney S. Diggs, alleges that Christian “insisted” that the plaintiff, Grace O’Marcaigh, take a shot of tequila that he poured for her while she was working as the yacht’s sole on-duty steward in the predawn hours of December 28, 2022. She says that soon after she acquiesced to be polite, “the mood changed, and things became sinister.”
She claims Christian forcefully grabbed her arm, prevented her from leaving the sundeck and forced her to take another shot. “Plaintiff was quite scared and realized she was in a very dangerous situation,” the paperwork states, adding that O’Marcaigh began to feel strange and “quickly suspected the tequila was spiked.” O’Marcaigh alleges Christian then proceeded to kiss her neck and face as he groped her legs, breasts, anus and vagina.
According to the lawsuit, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, a music producer who filed a separate sex trafficking lawsuit against Sean Combs in February, was present on the yacht as a collaborator with Diddy and recorded some of the exchange. The audio recording purportedly captures O’Marcaigh asking if she was being drugged and requesting that Christian stop touching her legs and “ass.”
O’Marcaigh, 25, alleges Christian cornered her in the yacht’s cinema a short time later and became “extremely aggressive,” stripping off his clothes, grabbing her arms and “trying to force plaintiff to perform oral copulation” on his “erect penis.” She began fighting to free herself and finally managed to leave when her partner on board went looking for her out of concern and entered the cinema. She says she complained to the ship’s captain, but the incident was not properly investigated. She alleges Sean Combs paid the captain a generous tip as part of a “coverup.” The lawsuit includes color photos showing bruises on O’Marcaigh’s arm she claims was caused by Christian.
According to the lawsuit, the incident was “deeply traumatizing” for O’Marcaigh, leading to the breakup of her relationship with her partner and a “deep depression.”
Representatives for Sean and Christian Combs did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Christian is accused of assault, battery, sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress in the lawsuit, while Sean Combs is accused of aiding and abetting the behavior and premises liability as the lease-holder on the yacht.
O’Marcaigh also claims that she observed a number of unsettling things while working on the yacht for Combs, including one alleged sex worker who became “extremely upset” and locked herself into a massage room while hysterically crying. “[The woman] said she did not feel safe and wanted to leave,” the suit claims.
Combs’ accused drug “mule” Brendan Paul was present on the yacht, once allegedly telling O’Marcaigh that he had to “watch Combs have sex with multiple women,” in case Combs “needed him to get him something while he was in the middle of the act.” Paul was the only known person arrested during the raids, taken away from Miami-Opa Locka airport in handcuffs, charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana.
Christian, whose mother Kim Porter died in 2018, made headlines last week when he was detained alongside older brother Justin Combs, 30, during the raid on their dad’s Los Angeles compound. Photos obtained by Rolling Stone showed him handcuffed outside his dad’s Holmby Hills mansion. He was later released. (A second raid was carried out simultaneously at Combs’ compound in Miami.)
Justin’s mother, Misa Hylton, shared new video from the surprise search in an Instagram post on Tuesday. One grainy clip appeared to show Christian being handcuffed up against an interior wall. Another clip showed Justin walking toward agents with his hands on his head and guns pointed at his chest.
“The over zealous and overtly militarized force used against my sons Justin and Christian is deplorable,” Misa Hylton wrote. “If these were the sons of a non-Black celebrity, they would not have been handled with the same aggression”
Federal officials have yet to disclose the exact basis for the search warrants, saying only that they were served as part of an “ongoing investigation” involving Homeland Security agents out of New York. A source tells Rolling Stone that four Jane Does and one John Doe already sat for interviews with Southern District of New York investigators for a probe related to alleged sex trafficking.
The raids came more than four months after R&B singer “Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed a bombshell complaint against Combs on Nov. 16 alleging he subjected her to vicious beatings, sex trafficking and rape. In her 35-page filing, Ventura claimed Combs punched, kicked and “stomped” on her and forced her to have drug-fueled intercourse with male sex workers during arrangements he dubbed “freak offs.” In a statement, Combs’ lawyer said the lawsuit was a financial shakedown “riddled with baseless and outrageous lies.” (Combs reached a private settlement with Ventura one day later.)
One week later, as New York’s Adult Survivors Act was set to expire, two more women stepped forward on Thanksgiving Day with similarly disturbing claims against Combs. The second accuser alleged Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her when she was a Syracuse University student in 1991. The woman claimed Combs filmed the incident and showed the video to others in an act described as “revenge porn.” Through a rep, Combs denied the allegation. “This last-minute lawsuit is an example of how a well-intentioned law can be turned on its head. (This) 32-year-old story is made up and not credible. Mr. Combs never assaulted her, and she implicates companies that did not exist. This is purely a money grab and nothing more,” the spokesperson said.
The third lawsuit alleged Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall took turns raping a plaintiff and her friend following an Uptown Records event in 1990. The plaintiff, who’s now suing under her real name, Liza Gardner, says she was 16 years old at the time of the allegedly assault. She further claims that a day later, Combs turned “irate and began assaulting and choking” her until she almost “passed out” because he was worried she might divulge what happened. “These are fabricated claims falsely alleging misconduct from over 30 years ago and filed at the last minute,” a Combs spokesperson said of Gardner’s lawsuit. “This is nothing but a money grab.”
In early December, a fourth accuser alleged Combs, former Bad Boy president Harve Pierre, and a third man gang raped her at Combs’ New York recording studio in 2003 when she was 17 years old. In late February, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexual assault, harassment, and not compensating him for work on the Grammy-nominated The Love Album.
Combs has denied any wrongdoing in each case. Still, he stepped down from the chairmanship of his Revolt TV media company last year as more than a dozen companies fled his e-commerce platform. In January, liquor giant Diageo cut him loose in a private settlement under which Combs will no longer be a joint owner of the tequila brand DeLeón or have any ties to Cîroc vodka.
