Producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones has filed a bombshell lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs accusing the embattled media mogul of sexually harassing and threatening him over more than a year, as well as securing footage of Diddy and several of his associates involved in illicit behavior and alleged sexual assault.
Jones, who seeks $30 million in the federal lawsuit, named several high-profile figures in the entertainment business in the complaint. But only Diddy’s son Justin Dior Combs, Universal Music Group Chief Executive Lucian Charles Grainge, former Motown Records Chief Executive Ethiopia Habtemariam, Chalice Recording Studios, the record labels and Diddy’s chief of staff Kristina “KK” Khorram, Love Records and Combs Enterprises are named as defendants. The network of involvement, Jones claimed, amounts to a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
The Chicago-born producer, who produced nine songs on Diddy’s 2023 “The Love Album: Off the Grid,” filed the lawsuit Tuesday in U.S District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the 75-page complaint, obtained Tuesday by The Times, his attorney Tyrone A. Blackburn said that Jones’ “life has been detrimentally impacted ever since” he agreed to produce the album in August 2022. Jones alleged that he was “under an implied work-for-hire agreement” with Combs and that he lived with the recording giant for months at a time in Combs’ homes in Los Angeles, New York City and Miami, as well as several weeks on a yacht rented by Combs in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“Throughout his time with Mr. Combs, Mr. Jones witnessed, experienced, and endured many things that went far beyond his role as a Producer on the Love album,” the complaint said, and that Combs “required” Jones to “record him constantly.”
The multi-instrumentalist, describing himself as a “heterosexual Christian man,” alleged that he was “the victim of constant unsolicited and unauthorized groping and touching of his anus by Mr. Combs” and was “uncomfortable with Mr. Combs’ advances,” expressing his complaints to Diddy’s chief of staff who allegedly told him “you know, Sean will be Sean” in response. Blackburn described Khorram as “the Ghislaine Maxwell to Sean Combs Jeffrey Epstein.”
He also alleged that Combs tried to groom him into engaging in sex with fellow producer Steven Aaron Jordan (“Stevie J”) and “promised to make sure that Mr. Jones wins producer of the year at the Grammys if he engaged in homosexuality.” He also provided Jones with alleged footage of people involved in sexual activity at Combs’ home, which Jones believed was procured through hidden cameras throughout Diddy’s properties.
“Mr. Combs possesses compromising footage of every person that has attended his freak off parties, and his house parties,” the complaint said. “Upon information and belief, due to this treasure trove of evidence he has in his possession, Mr. Combs believes that he is above the law and is untouchable.”
Jones also alleged that he was sexually assaulted by a cousin or assistant of rapper Yung Miami, who has dated Diddy; was sexually harassed and assaulted by Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr.; and obtained footage of a rapper and an R&B singer (whose names have been redacted from the complaint) consorting with underage girls and sex workers.
“On several occasions, Mr. Combs took Mr. Jones cellphone and began recording himself. As a result, Mr. Jones has secured HUNDREDS of hours of footage and audio recordings of Mr. Combs, his staff, and his guests engaging in serious illegal activity,” the complaint said, which includes screenshots of several of the incidents mentioned in the complaint.
The producer said that he “secured irrefutable evidence” of illicit activity, including Combs providing laced alcoholic beverages to minors and sex workers at his homes and the rapper’s acquisition, use and distribution of ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana and mushrooms, as well as displaying and distribution of unregistered illegal firearms.
Jones said that he was at Chalice Recording Studios in Los Angeles when a shooting took place on Sept. 12, 2022, and accused Combs of giving him “strict instructions to inform the police that [Combs] had nothing to do with the shooting. He also forced Mr. Jones to lie to the police by telling them that G was shot standing outside the studio by a drive-by assailant.” The suit describes G as a 30-year-old friend of Justin Combs.
Jones alleged that he still has the blood-stained clothing he wore that day while helping the victim and provided screenshots of the aftermath of the restroom “where G was shot by either Mr. Combs or J. Combs.”
Jones also accused Khorram of instructing her staff to retrieve drugs so she could provide them to Combs for his consumption. He also said the footage also shows Diddy’s son Christian Combs drugging and sexually assaulting a woman.
Additionally, he accused Combs of detailing how he planned to leverage his relationship with Bishop T.D. Jakes “to soften the impact on his public image of Cassie Ventura’s lawsuit.” That rape and abuse lawsuit — filed and settled last November — began Diddy’s precipitous fall from grace over the past several months. Since then, Diddy has been accused of sexual assault by additional women and stepped down from his position as chairman of Revolt TV, the media company he co-founded in 2013.
Jones, who previously made a public plea on social media for Combs to pay him for his work on the album, accused Love Records, Motown and UMG of being “unjustly enriched” at his expense.
In a Tuesday statement to The Times, Combs’ attorney Shawn Holley called Jones a liar and accused him of “shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday.”
“His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines,” Holley’s statement said.
“We have overwhelming, indisputable proof that his claims are complete lies. Our attempts to share this proof with Mr. Jones’ attorney, Tyrone Blackburn, have been ignored, as Mr. Blackburn refuses to return our calls,” Holley said. “We will address these outlandish allegations in court and take all appropriate action against those who make them.”
