Diddy's secret world revealed in videos and his voice notes
52 minutes agoShareSaveRianna Croxford and Larissa KennellyBBC News Investigations•@rianna_croxfordShareSaveBBC
Warning: Explicit content
"Can y'all come straighten it up over here? It's not looking luxurious," Sean "Diddy" Combs says in a voice note to his personal assistants as R&B music mellows in the background.
Hours before, a so-called "freak-off" - a drug-fuelled orgy also known as a "Wild King Night" – had been in full swing. Now, staff were being called in to clean up.
"PD said he's going to need emergency clean up at hotel," his chief of staff texts after another of these events. "Bring him stain remover (for a chair and couch) and black trash bags. And baking soda too, he said."
WATCH: Video shared with BBC – Sean "Diddy" Combs holds pool parties at his Miami mansion
The BBC has seen messages and recordings from former staff in Combs' household. The staff members have also given detailed accounts of what it was like to work on the multi-millionaire music mogul's glamorous yacht rentals and inside his sprawling estates across the US – in the Hamptons, Beverly Hills and on Star Island in Miami.
Their experiences span the past five to 10 years, a period that was under scrutiny during Combs' criminal trial in New York.
At the trial's conclusion on Wednesday, the 55-year-old was cleared of the most serious charges – racketeering, and two counts of sex trafficking related to ex-partner Casandra Ventura and another woman referred to as "Jane".
But jurors found he was guilty of two other counts related to the transportation to engage in prostitution of both women. He will be sentenced at a later date.
Getty ImagesOfficers raid Combs' mansion on Star Island, Miami Beach, Florida
We have been shown material which paints a picture of a "scary" and unpredictable boss, who would administer shocking "loyalty tests", and whose demands grew more and more extreme.
Staff have described how his sometimes-days-long "freak-offs" were held at locations around the world, with the rapper expecting staff to prepare a bag containing "baby oil, lubricant and red lights" – to create the red-tinted ambience Combs preferred – alongside class-A drugs wherever he travelled.
ReutersCombs at the Met Gala, New York, 2023
'Wild King Nights'
Inside his waterfront Miami mansion, a I'm not about to be transparent with y'all," a groggy Combs warns staff one day in a rambling voice note posted in an employee WhatsApp group in 2020. "There's some dark places y'all [EXPLETIVE] don't want to go. Stay where you're at."
Staff say he was intense, demanding and volatile, with some attributing his unpredictability to a lifestyle of drug-fuelled parties. The turnover of staff was high and Combs had more than 20 different house managers join and leave in just two years across his properties, one former estates manager told us.
LISTEN: Combs sent a long rambling voice note to staff: "There's some dark places y'all"
Phil Pines, 40, who worked for Combs as a senior executive assistant from 2019-2021, has told the BBC the mogul didn't say a word to him when he first started his job.
"It was like an initiation," he explains. "We didn't speak to each other for 30 days."
Another recent assistant, Ethan (not his real name), recalls: "He was a very ill man with different behaviours, sometimes very aggressive, sometimes very sweet."
We have changed Ethan's name because, like many former staff members, he still works in the high-net-worth hospitality industry and fears speaking out about Combs will hurt his career.
Ethan shows us a small scar on his forehead. He says this was the result of Combs smashing a glass against a wall in a fit of rage, and the shards cutting Ethan's face.
Phil Pines and Ethan were part of Combs' small group of trusted assistants and say he often played mind games with staff.
Phil Pines worked for Combs as a senior executive assistant
Ethan recalls one of Combs' loyalty tests – when the star took off one of his rings and threw it into the Atlantic Ocean. He then turned to Ethan and told him he had to go into the water to get it.
They were at a formal event and Ethan, like his boss, was wearing a smart suit. He says this didn't stop him jumping in right away to rescue it.
In another incident, Pines says Combs called him to his residence after midnight, just so he could fetch the TV remote from under the bed he was in with a female guest.
"See? He is loyal and now he can go back home," he recalls Combs telling her. Pines says he felt like an animal.
Combs' chief of staff Kristina Khorram helped organise the "Wild King Nights", says Pines
But the Wild King Nights – as the rapper's chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, referred to them – revealed an even darker side to working for Combs.
"I was asked to set up a laundry list of items for him," says Pines. "And I thought to myself, why didn't anybody explain this to me before?"
In one exchange seen by the BBC, Khorram texted him to warn a bag needs to be prepared for a Wild King Night in two hours. In another, she asked for a "drop off" of seven bottles of baby oil and seven bottles of Astroglide lubricant alongside iced vanilla lattes.
"Rounding up a shelf of baby oil and Astroglide at a store is very, very humiliating. I would always pretend like I was on the phone," Pines tells us.
In Combs' trial the prosecution presented evidence of supplies they said were procured for "freak-offs". A police raid on Combs' Los Angeles mansion found drugs and more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil.
From three months into his role, Pines began having concerns about the frequency of these requests. "It became daily, sometimes twice a day, every day, and every week."
Pines says there was a constant stream of young women who frequented Combs' homes – apparently for sex. Young men were also called to the parties, says Ethan.
Some of these young people would appear to be friends of the star's sons, Pines tells us, with some of the women later seen "hanging" with Combs.
Pines says he also had concerns that some of these guests – who looked like they were in their early 20s – were "too young" and "impressionable" for his then 50-year-old boss.
"I would see some women feel uncomfortable or at least look like they'd had a wild night," says Pines.
A woman with an IV drip would usually visit the next day, he says, to help guests recover after sometimes "partying" for 24 hours non-stop without food.
Pines recalls one young guest uttering to him in distress: "I've never done anything like that before."
He was instructed to drive her home from Combs' Miami residence: "She was kind of shaking and shivering, like she was coming down off the drugs."
LISTEN: Combs sent voice notes to staff asking for Xanax, Plan B (emergency contraceptives) and Cialis (sex enhancement medication)
The drug-fuelled nature of these nights has repeatedly been brought up during Combs' trial. Casandra Ventura, his ex-partner of more than a decade, testified that she endured years of coerced sex with male escorts under the threat of beatings and blackmail, while Combs filmed the encounters. She said these events would sometimes go on for days and require her to take countless drugs to stay awake.
Another woman, who dated Combs on-and-off from 2021 until his arrest last September, gave evidence that she felt pressured to fulfil his desires partly because he was paying her rent, and said the encounters left her feeling "disgusted" and in physical pain.
In his defence at trial, Combs' lawyer said he admitted to domestic violence, but argued that all the sexual encounters were consensual, and that Combs had a "swingers lifestyle".
The BBC understands at least one staff member was asked to search online for escorts to participate in the Wild King nights. Screenshots of the escorts were then sent to Combs for approval.
Pines says he doesn't know what happened at these events, but he was asked to deal with the aftermath.
It was "just complete wreckage", he says. "Oil all over the floor. Marijuana joints everywhere… I would wear gloves. I would wear a mask."
"He [Combs] would get up, put his hoodie on and walk out the door," Pines says, leaving staff to clean the room.
On one occasion, Pines says he witnessed Combs push and kick a female guest during an argument at his house, which continued outside.
Combs swore at her and said "give me my hoodie", Pines remembers. "She takes off the hoodie, she's topless, no bra, nothing, no t-shirt on. So, I take off my jacket and I wrap it around her to kind of shield her."
The guest left in an Uber crying, says Pines, but within a week she was back at the house again with Combs.
"She came back shortly after that. Dinner, gifts… she was brought back into the fold."
When Pines told his supervisor Khorram about the incident, he says she knew exactly what to say to him: "I kind of give her a play-by-play of what happened. Her words to me: 'Never speak about this again.'"
Kristina Khorram has not responded to the BBC's request for comment but has previously denied any wrongdoing.
In a statement to CNN last March, she described allegations against her as "false" and "causing irreparable and incalculable damage to my reputation and the emotional well-being of myself and my family".
"I have never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone. Nor have I ever drugged anyone," she said.
Baby oil and Astroglide lubricant (left) and marijuana joints (right) were supplied on party nights
Staff would be required to erase any evidence of "freak-offs" – removing bodily stains from sheets, disposing of drugs and, Pines tells us, scrubbing any "compromising" recorded footage of the sexual encounters off his boss's personal phones and laptops.
Other staff also describe feeling disturbed by Combs' sexual encounters.
"[There are] things I saw with my own eyes, memories that will stay forever," says Ethan. He says Combs would sometimes ask him to enter the room and "bring him water or male enhancement pills" while sex was taking place.
Pines has filed his own civil lawsuit against Combs. The BBC approached Combs' lawyers for comment in respect of Pines' allegations, and they made this statement in response: "No matter how many lawsuits are filed, it won't change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone – man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason."
Pines recalls a particularly horrifying incident around November 2020, when he says he was asked to stay behind after work and set up an after-party at the Miami mansion.
He says that Combs and his guests had been "in the sun partying, taking mushrooms, smoking, drinking all day – so they were completely gone by this time".
Pines (right) says Combs asked him to "prove his loyalty"
During the party, Pines says Combs invited him to take a shot, before asking him to "prove his loyalty".
He handed Pines a condom and pushed him towards a female guest who was lying on a nearby couch.
"At that moment, I'm like, what is going on?" Pines says. "I froze. I was just shocked by what was happening. I felt cold… but I also felt so much pressure."
Pines says the woman consented and they had sex until Combs began "drifting off into another part of the suite".
"I didn't want any of that," he says. "Once I kind of saw him out of my peripheral, that he was gone, I pulled out my pants and just got out of there quickly.
"It was a power move. I felt like I was coerced. It was manipulation."
The Gucci bag
When they travelled internationally, staff say Combs' drugs came with him, concealed in a safe onboard his Even if it was for a day trip, if he was going on the yacht for four hours, take all that stuff with you because he may use it," Pines recalls being instructed.
He claims mushrooms, ketamine and ecstasy were kept in a small black Gucci bag alongside baby oil, lubricant and red lights.
Combs' lawyers admitted during trial that he had procured drugs, but said they were for personal use only.
Staff say a Gucci bag was carried on trips filled with lubricants and Class A drugs
In one nerve-wracking incident in Venice in summer 2021, Pines says Italian authorities questioned Combs' staff for an hour. He feared that if they had found the drugs hidden in the luggage, he would have "taken the fall" for his boss.
A former personal assistant, Brendan Paul, was arrested on charges of drug possession while with Combs at a Miami airport in March 2024, on the same day police raided the rapper's homes. The charges were later dropped after Paul completed a pre-trial diversion programme.
During Combs' trial, Paul, 26, testified that he had found cocaine after "sweeping" his boss's room and had forgotten it was in his bag while they prepared for a vacation in the Bahamas. He told the court that he did not tell law enforcement that they were Combs' drugs out of "loyalty".
Staff say Combs would hold "freak offs" internationally – in hotels and private yachts
By December 2021, Pines says he had had enough.
"The money wasn't worth it… because of the experiences I was having with him. It was just too much to bear."
When asked why staff had not spoken out sooner, Pines does not hesitate. They were, he says, afraid of Combs.
"He is a very scary person. Whether you're his employee, you're a contractor, you're a girlfriend, guest, you know what he's capable of," he says.
Ethan says he used to believe that Combs had "people a couple of steps in front" who "caught everything". But after his former boss's arrest, his view shifted. Staff simply were not able to stop what was coming, he says. "Obviously being a celebrity, he could cut many corners," he reflects, but "he couldn't avoid the law".
Pines says he was approached by the FBI as part of its criminal investigation last summer and was later legally summoned to give evidence ahead of Combs' trial. Other ex-assistants, who worked for Combs back in 2014 and as recently as 2024, testified in court during the trial.
"I have to nod to Cassie Ventura for being so courageous to stand up to him," Pines says.
Getty ImagesCasandra Ventura (right) filed a civil lawsuit against Combs in November 2023
Ventura's civil lawsuit, filed in November 2023, alleged Combs had trapped her in a cycle of violence and sexual abuse. The lawsuit was settled in a She opened the door for people like me to come forward, and for other people who are going through similar things who feel silenced, who feel powerless going up against a giant."
If you would like to speak to Rianna or Larissa about this story you can get in touch here.
Sean ‘Diddy’ CombsUnited States
Sursa: BBC News
