When Cassie Ventura filed her 2023 lawsuit accusing Sean Combs of sex trafficking and assault, Rolling Stone‘s senior entertainment investigative reporter Cheyenne Roundtree began tracing the music mogul’s rise to power and allegations that had long circulated only in whispered warnings. Her reporting appeared in Rolling Stone’s May 2024 feature “Bad Boy for Life: Sean Combs’ History of Violence,” and in the HBO documentary The Fall of Diddy, for which she received a consulting producer credit. She later covered Combs’s criminal trial and partial conviction from start to finish. Now, in her debut book, Bad Boy for Life: The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs, due Sept. 29 via Henry Holt, Roundtree offers a sweeping account of the label executive’s flashy ascent and staggering fall from grace.

In an exclusive excerpt, Roundtree takes readers inside Combs’ efforts to control his image from behind bars and how his “look-alike son” Christian Combs has been acting as his “proxy” at events such as the February 2025 funeral for Voletta Wallace, the mother of the Notorious B.I.G., not always to the desired effect.

Roundtree writes that while Combs’ downfall triggered initial shock waves, it stopped short of generating a wider reckoning for the executives, producers, and gatekeepers who “enabled bad behavior to maintain the status quo.” The final chapter takes stock of the #MeToo movement, what may await Combs when he’s eventually released (the Bureau of Prisons currently predicts he’ll go home on Feb. 5, 2028), and how celebrity often functions as a form of social currency, buying the rich and famous a measure of leniency unavailable to the countless fans who helped make Combs a star.

Sean John Combs, as of this writing, is inmate number 37452-054 and counting down the days of his sentence at Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey. Combs spends his time working in the chapel library and participating in the prison’s residential drug abuse program. His team managed to pull serious strings to bypass the lengthy waitlist and typical time requirements to secure him a spot in the intensive 500-hour course that can last between nine and 12 months. In addition to treatment, the program is highly sought after for another reason: Upon completion, inmates can reduce their sentences by up to a year.

Combs’ efforts to shorten his time behind bars have not been limited to prison programs. His appellate legal team has been aggressively searching for any and every legal avenue that would overturn the judge’s sentence, nullify the jury’s guilty verdict, or even discredit the very criminal law that Combs was prosecuted under. At the same time, some of his associates continued working behind the scenes to butter up well-connected figures in Washington, D.C., hoping to earn the sympathies of Combs’ former associate President Donald Trump. “I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great, and [he] seemed like a nice guy,” Trump told Newsmax when asked about the possibility of a pardon for Combs. “I didn’t know him well. But when I ran for office, he was very hostile.” (“White men like Trump need to be banished,” Combs said in 2020.) After failing to gain traction for clemency through unofficial channels, Combs personally appealed to Trump, making the case for his freedom in a letter. Perhaps recalling Combs’ recent snubs, a thin-skinned and famously grudge-prone Trump said he wasn’t considering his old friend’s request.

Even within the confines of prison, however, Combs appears determined to manage his narrative. Within a month of his transfer to Fort Dix, he allegedly made a forbidden three-way phone call in which he instructed a female member of his team to contact a “digital person” regarding social media blog posts. During the same period, in what would have broken Combs’ sobriety streak, officials reportedly caught Combs with a homemade concoction of fermenting apples, Fanta, and sugar. His team said the claims were false. “He’s taking his time there seriously and working every day toward healing and coming home,” said a spokesperson attempting to downplay reports of the prison taking disciplinary action against Combs over the phone call. “As with any high-profile individual in a new environment, there will be many rumors and exaggerated stories throughout his time there, most of them untrue,” the spokesperson added. “We ask that people give him the benefit of the doubt, the privacy to focus on his personal growth.” Yet, despite this broad and vague denial, the Bureau of Prisons pushed back Combs’ release date by a few weeks.

To those who hoped justice would be served by the trial, the outcome offered little closure. Instead, many settled for the faint hope that his court-ordered isolation away from his wealth, family, and spotlight might force a measure of self-reflection. But Combs’ continued efforts to shorten his sentence by any means possible and his alleged neglect of pledges of change when he believed no one was looking only hammered home what some knew about Combs all along: He believes he’s done nothing wrong.

In February 2025, Voletta Wallace, the mother of the Notorious B.I.G., died of natural causes at the age of 78. Although Voletta could “do without the profanity” in her son’s music, she recognized the “beautiful stories” he was able to tell and the profound impact of his artistry, and she had worked to carry the torch of his legacy, cementing him as a hip-hop icon. She oversaw Wallace’s estate alongside his widow, Faith Evans, and former co-manager Wayne Barrow, controlling his music catalog and rights to his likeness and approving tasteful biopics and projects about his life. Originally valued at $10 million at the time of Biggie’s death, the estate had grown, with Voletta’s help, to a valuation of $200 million. (Music publisher Primary Wave acquired a 50 percent interest in the estate shortly before Voletta died.) And the former schoolteacher shepherded the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, using it to empower the local community through education and mentorship programs.

A funeral for Voletta was held the following month at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on the Upper East Side in New York City, the same place where her son’s service was held on March 18, 1997. It was a muted affair, unlike the spectacle that had preceded it some 30 years earlier. Community members and fans who wanted to pay their respects trickled into the public viewing where Voletta’s casket sat nestled amid fragrant displays of dusty pink and white flowers, murmuring their surprise at the small turnout to send off a king’s mother.

The day was a somber reunion for the early Bad Boy family. Evans, Lil’ Kim, Mase, Wallace’s former manager and RCA Records President Mark Pitts, former Bad Boy president Harve Pierre, Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s Lil’ Cease, Wallace’s close friends and Combs’ bodyguards D-Roc and Rube, and even one of Combs’ early chiefs of staff were in attendance, arriving at the service one by one. A majority of the group also paid a visit to 226 St. James Place, standing on the same steps where Wallace and his friends would shoot the shit and practice their early rhymes. There were notable absences — too many to linger on. Missing were Wallace’s early champion, Andre Harrell, who died in 2020; and Wallace’s idol Heavy D, who died suddenly in 2011. And of course, Combs, the early glue for their sometimes-dysfunctional family. The man who had made them kin.

Standing in as Combs’ proxy was his look-alike son Christian, who hovered awkwardly around his father’s peers as they posed for photos at Wallace’s old doorstep. Aware of what the moment would signal to a wider audience, Christian’s presence was Combs’ clear message that he wouldn’t let himself fall out of the picture. Until Combs was free to reclaim his place, his sons would serve as his representatives.

Though both Justin and Quincy continue to support their father, Christian has taken it upon himself to shoulder the effort to preserve Combs’ legacy. Combs idolized his father, Melvin, wearing his portrait on a medallion around his neck; Christian treats his father with the same reverence. Their resemblance is uncanny; near carbon copies, some 30 years apart. As a toddler, Christian watched wide-eyed as Combs commanded crowds, throwing tyke-sized tantrums when he couldn’t go up onstage alongside his dad. Growing older, Christian inherited his father’s mannerisms and infectious energy and often wears a glittering Bad Boy chain around his neck, firmly tying himself to his father’s shadow.

Striving to become an artist in his own right, he’s released songs paying homage to Bad Boy and doubling down on his allegiance, with tunes like “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop” and the more direct “Diddy Free,” which he made with Ye, a.k.a. Kanye West. “I’m this way because my whole life, my entire life, I studied my dad up and down,” Christian told the judge at Combs’ sentencing. “To me my dad is the greatest man in the world. He is my hero, always been my hero, and still is my superhero.”

At a show by the recently reunited Total, they brought out their “nephew,” Christian, for a surprise appearance. He shimmied his shoulders in the now-infamous “Diddy Bop,” and tried to lead the crowd in a Bad Boy chant. The response was noticeably lukewarm, and Christian quickly dropped the effort. He was learning the hard way that inheritance easily passes down in terms of genetics and wealth, but not in fandom or cultural relevancy.

As efforts to hold Combs accountable began to plateau, the hope for a broader reckoning within the music industry similarly petered out. Even the few civil lawsuits that named Bad Boy employees or those linked to Combs have been stalled, amended, or quietly abandoned. In the days after Ventura filed her lawsuit, Uptown Records’ Andre Harrell, who was a formative early mentor and friend to Combs, was named in a posthumous complaint brought by a Jane Doe. The corresponding court documents vanished from the online server, and the woman’s attorney declined to provide any information about the woman’s allegations. Two sexual assault cases against Harve Pierre — Combs’ longtime friend from Howard University and former Bad Boy president — brought by Anna Kane and Pierre’s former assistant have remained largely stalled since they were filed in 2023. (Pierre has denied the allegations.) Prosecutors had spoken of an alleged racketeering conspiracy ring that encompassed not only Combs but also staffers who were accused of helping funnel drugs to Combs and being complicit in their boss’ abuse of women, yet Combs was the lone person who ended up facing criminal charges—ones that he largely was acquitted of. In the end, no one — not even Combs himself — was forced to fully account for what had taken place under his stewardship.

What remains of the chorus of accusations is now collecting dust at Combs’ feet, as the public appears ready to move on. In the months after Combs’ conviction, an undercurrent of commentary on social media — mostly male-dominated — began to tilt back in his favor, as people shared the hashtag #FreeDiddy and echoed arguments that his own camp had long advanced: He had been unfairly and selectively prosecuted. Being “freaky” was not a crime. Ventura was not truly a victim and deserved to face consequences alongside Combs. Accusers were exaggerating or lying outright in pursuit of a payday. As those narratives gained traction, the question inevitably lingered for those who had come forward against Combs: Was it worth it? Will they spend months — or years — wondering whether he might retaliate against them? Would the publicity cost them their current or future jobs? What regrets might surface in making their deeply personal trauma available for the world to pass judgment on?

Critics often chastise survivors who do not first pursue justice by going to law enforcement and seeing their claims through the criminal courts, but arrests and indictments can take years to materialize, and charges can be delayed or derailed by bureaucratic hurdles outside an accuser’s control. Once a case enters the criminal justice system, control shifts almost entirely to state or federal officials, often leaving victims feeling sidelined.

Even when accusations do proceed through the legal system, victories can be rare and hard-fought. Civil litigation can drag on for years, frequently ending in settlements reached at the eleventh hour, just before a trial begins. Many of the civil cases filed against Combs between 2023 and 2025 have yet to see the inside of a courtroom. An overwhelming majority remain stalled as Combs’ attorneys await a ruling on whether the revival window is preempted by state laws. Several plaintiffs who initially filed under Jane and John Doe pseudonyms were ordered by judges to reveal their identities, prompting some to withdraw their cases altogether. Before truth has a chance to surface, it is often sealed behind NDAs that bury revealing depositions and silence the very people who brought the claims forward. Those who choose to speak publicly must brace themselves for sneers and accusations that they are money-driven opportunists.

The Southern District of New York’s case against Combs illustrates these challenges. Building the criminal case itself was already a Herculean effort. Prosecutors assembled thousands of pages of text messages and emails, obtained bank and flight records, gathered corroborating witnesses, and collected video footage of freak-offs and the damning tape of Combs attacking Ventura. Yet even with that mountain of evidence, the outcome was convictions on lesser charges and a sentence much shorter than the government’s recommended 11 years. Ventura’s civil case, which raised the same accusations, had the opposite outcome. Within 24 hours, the matter was settled. Combs paid her $20 million, and both agreed to never publicly speak about the other. Had it ended there, they would have avoided any more of their most intimate and private moments being opened up for the world to dissect.

Ventura’s case is a reminder of how rarely these stories reach a satisfying resolution. Even when allegations are taken seriously and evidence is assembled, justice often can arrive not through a courtroom verdict but through a quiet financial agreement. For many who come forward, that compromise may be the closest thing to accountability they will ever receive.

In the wake of Combs’ fall from grace, there has been no widespread, industry-wide reckoning. When the allegations against the mogul first surfaced, some observers earnestly believed they might trigger a broader domino effect across the board, and that the long-awaited day of accountability would arrive for the record label heads, C-level executives, managers, producers, gatekeepers, and anyone who had enabled bad behavior to maintain the status quo. Some hoped that labels would confront the culture of misogyny in an ecosystem that critics have long said has gone unchecked and cast out predators among their ranks. A global 2024 report from MIDiA Research found that in a survey of more than 4,000 women who worked as producers, songwriters, artists, and varying junior- to high-level roles within the music business, three in five said they had experienced sexual harassment. One in five said they had been sexually assaulted. Yet nearly three years after Ventura first filed her lawsuit against Combs, there has been no further fallout, no reinvigorated movement of any kind. Instead, Combs and what happened under Bad Boy’s roof were treated like a self-contained anomaly.

Earlier cases brought against high-profile and powerful men in the music industry under the MeToo banner have had disparate results. As 20 women accused music mogul Russell Simmons, one of Combs’ oldest friends, of sexual assault, he relocated to peaceful Bali, Indonesia. There, he practices yoga daily and plays host to his visiting celebrity friends. Shock rocker Marilyn Manson withstood claims of torture and sexual and psychological abuse from his ex-girlfriend actress Evan Rachel Wood and other women; far from facing meaningful consequences, he has walked in a Paris Fashion Week show and gone on a worldwide tour. Label head L.A. Reid, Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter, indie singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, feminist punk-rock singer Justin Sane (Justin Geever), as well as older rockers Tommy Lee and Axl Rose, have all faced varying degrees of scrutiny over sexual misconduct and abuse allegations. Yet most ultimately endured brief periods of public backlash before returning to normalcy — unlike in Hollywood, where accused men such as Harvey Weinstein and Danny Masterson are behind bars, while Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., and Bill Cosby are among those being kept on the fringes of the television and film industries.

Apart from Combs, R&B legend R. Kelly is the only other high-profile musician sitting in prison for abuses exposed in the fallout of the MeToo era. Two juries in Chicago and New York City convicted Kelly of a series of heinous crimes involving minors and child pornography. Though Kelly’s conviction has not fully erased the complicated relationship between accountability and celebrity in the music world. New Jack Swing pioneer Teddy Riley said in early 2026 that he would still consider working with Kelly from behind bars. “Everybody deserves a second chance,” Riley told the Los Angeles Times. “Everyone deserves to repent, and everyone gets forgiven by God when you come to him. People miss his music.” After public backlash, Riley walked back the comments. The support Kelly still has illustrates just how high the threshold for true accountability and justice really is. It took decades of allegations — at first overlooked — overwhelming evidence, federal investigations, and multiple criminal trials before the system finally produced a definitive consequence. And still, some aren’t willing to disavow Kelly.

The absence of a broader reckoning following Combs’ downfall becomes less surprising in light of this culture. Rather than triggering a sweeping, uncomfortable confrontation with the industry’s culture of power and silence, the scandal instead reinforced a familiar pattern: The system absorbs the shock, isolates those who dared to speak up, and moves forward largely unchanged and mostly unchallenged. When a Forbes journalist asked Usher — an early Combs mentee who spent time at his “flavor camp” as a teen — the first word that came to mind when he heard Combs’ name, Usher didn’t second-guess himself. “Legacy,” he answered. It was less than a year after Combs’ criminal trial, in which the music mogul had admitted to rampant abuse in at least one relationship, and Usher said he didn’t have anything negative to say about Combs. “I’m not saying that every man is perfect. I’m not saying that all of us don’t have flaws,” Usher explained. “But I can’t with any sense of humanity not recognize the valuable contributions that this man made for us as Black entrepreneurs, for us as businessmen, for us as people who have transitioned culture and ideas into something that’s tangible. So many people benefitted from what he created and I acknowledge that.”

It was a sentiment that dozens in Combs’ own circle had expressed to the judge ahead of his sentencing. Combs was a beacon of inspiration not just for the Black community, but for those who admired the classic American spirit of forging one’s own destiny. They had reaped the benefits of the path he blazed, and although they knew that shouldn’t absolve him of his misconduct, it was a factor they took into consideration as they lobbied for his freedom. Beyond being woefully unequipped — perhaps even reluctant — to tackle claims of sexual abuse against powerful figures, American society also has yet to confront its fawning relationship to celebrity and power, two forces that so often move hand in hand. It’s a dangerous combination, one that too often shields the powerful from scrutiny, enabling the public to continue bestowing admiration, protection, and even leniency for their misdeeds. The figures we elevate to cultural royalty are frequently allowed to operate under a different set of expectations. Their looks, brilliance, charisma, or commercial success coalesce into an unseen force of social currency that can soften judgment or let them bypass accountability.

By the end of the 2020s, Combs will set foot back inside his palatial $48 million Miami waterfront home, warmly welcomed into the arms of those who have remained fiercely loyal to him. He’ll still have significant wealth, although the constant drain of fighting off never-ending civil lawsuits will have taken a toll on his balance sheets. Eventually, normalcy will settle in, and Combs will take stock of the uncertain future before him and confront a question that has shadowed the latter years of his life: Where does he go from here?

Combs’ temporary absence has allowed some of his former artists to experience a minor renaissance. People had originally flocked to Bad Boy out of admiration not for Combs but for the artists who defined the label. Danity Kane briefly regrouped as a trio — Aubrey O’Day, Aundrea Fimbres, and D. Woods — for a sold-out show in San Francisco. R&B group 112 launched a multicity tour with supporting acts in Total and Case. Day 26, of Making the Band, followed in their footsteps and hit the road in spring 2026. And Cassie’s breakout song “Me & U” and follow-up single “Long Way 2 Go” began trending on TikTok, with some of her old performances going viral. “She really could’ve been a star,” one person wrote.

Combs watched it all unfold from the sidelines. Never one to hold his tongue, Combs has been forced into a rare and uncomfortable silence for years. Through the country’s most formidable lawyers, silver-tongued spokespeople, and stealthy intermediaries, paraphrases of his viewpoints and his messaging have been delivered to the public. Yet, Combs has always felt at his most powerful when he has the microphone in his hand. Controlling the narrative has long been central to his persona. Combs knows all too well how fickle the general public can be, and how swiftly sympathy can ping-pong from one side to the other. A moving comeback story overlaid with a rose-colored sheen of nostalgia is a tried-and-true tactic for a tale of redemption. The question is not whether he will speak, but what he will choose to say.

Through the criminal trial, memoirs, civil lawsuits, investigative reporting, and a slate of documentaries, the world already knows a great deal about who Sean Combs is. The December 2025 Netflix docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning, by Combs’ industry rival 50 Cent and director Alexandria Stapleton, exposed a man with a dangerous streak who treated people like playthings; more than 22 million views were logged for the project in the first week. In many ways, people never had to look too hard to learn what they needed to about Combs; he’s been telling on himself for decades, through his actions, words, and sometimes, in his own lyrics. His 2023 project The Love Album: Off the Grid is an open nod to the drug-fueled, dayslong sexual escapades that had become a staple of his life. And the song “Homecoming” includes whispered ad-libs invoking Ventura’s nickname “CC,” even after she had moved on from Combs to build the stable, happy family life she had long desired.

Combs has both utilized and weaponized his fortune, industry status, and reputation to hide a volatile temper and disturbing behavior for decades. Dozens of people have accused Combs of playing games with their lives, sometimes for self-serving business reasons, other times for his own amusement. He’s been described as a master manipulator and strategist able to play the long game to keep people — or a narrative — under his control. The word no is not a stopping point for Combs; it’s the start of a negotiation he’s determined to win. He’s been accused of terrible deeds. Accusers have labeled him a narcissist, a monster, and a demon. And there may be other factors at play. There’s an untamed rage that constantly boils underneath his surface. Drug use exacerbated his temper, but it wasn’t the sole cause of it. Many have described him as deeply insecure, haunted by fears of abandonment that trace back to the earliest chapters of his life. But ultimately, only Combs himself can say what lies beneath the persona he has spent decades constructing.

Reducing Combs to a caricature of villainy alone would ignore the complexity that has long defined his influence. He has a family and friends who love him dearly. Some employees, artists, and ex-girlfriends compare gaining his praise and attention to basking in the warmth of the sun itself. He possesses a rare ability to make people feel seen, valued, and chosen. Combs is undeniably talented, with a natural knack for understanding his audience. He created music that defined eras and helped push hip-hop into the mainstream consciousness, expanding its appeal beyond inner cities. Is the whole of Combs, particularly his iconic contributions to music and what he represented to the Black community, greater than the sum of his darker parts?

Since the inception of Puffy, Combs has been the overpowering narrator of his own story, masterful at marketing himself as whatever shiny new version of himself he’s decided to be. His intentions very well may be sincere and genuine. But trust isn’t inherently earned, even with a good-faith apology. And meaningful accountability takes true atonement and time. A man capable of reinvention several times over, Combs will certainly have a narrative ready to sell to the world when he emerges from prison. The question now is not whether he will speak, but whether the public has learned enough about the real Sean Combs that they’ll still be willing to listen.

Excerpted from Bad Boy for Life: The Rise and Fall of Sean Combs by Cheyenne Roundtree. Published by Henry Holt and Company. Copyright © 2026 by Cheyenne Roundtree. All rights reserved.