ROBERT DEUTSCH / USA TODAY NETWORK
Sean Combs, AKA Diddy, has filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against accuser Courtney Burgess, his attorney Ariel Mitchell, and Nextstar Media, owners of NewsNation. Burgess testified before a grand jury that led to the rapper’s arrest.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims Burgess made up accusations about Diddy during his grand jury testimony. It also added Mitchell and Nextstar as defendants for being part of a “willful scheme to fabricate and broadcast outrageous lies.”
Diddy claims Burgess made up the accusations and NewsNation promoted them “to gain social media fame, enrich themselves, and strip Mr. Combs of his reputation, livelihood, and a right to a fair trial.”
“Combs is taking a stand against the malicious falsehoods that have been fabricated and amplified by individuals seeking to profit at his expense.” Combs’ attorney Erica Wolff said in a statement, according to Variety. “These defendants have willfully fabricated and disseminated outrageous lies with reckless disregard for the truth. Their falsehoods have poisoned public perception and contaminated the jury pool. This complaint should serve as a warning that such falsehoods, which undermine Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial, will no longer be tolerated.”
Burgess testified before the grand jury that he was given 11 flash drives with the “Freak Off” party videos by Diddy’s ex-girlfriend and mother of three of his children, Kim Porter, prior to her death in 2018. He also claimed that among the eight A-list celebrities that appeared on the videos, “all of” them appeared to be under the influence of something and that “two to three” of them, he believes, were minors at the time.
Burgess and his attorney, Ariel Mitchell, would go on to appear on the NewsNation show Banfield. Mitchell had previously claimed that one of the male celebrities on the videos is “more high-profile than Mr. Combs,” but would not say who it was.
In an earlier interview on NewsNation, Mitchell claimed, “The individuals who contacted me purported to have three different tapes with three different celebrities, including Diddy, and then a fourth celebrity without Diddy but in a compromising situation with someone.”
Mitchell is also the attorney for the woman who claims she was assaulted by Conor McGregor in a bathroom at the Kaseya Center in Miami during Game 4 of the NBA Finals in 2023.