In today’s era of misinformation, it’s not especially unusual to see a flurry of conspiracy theories and other unenlightened discourse on social media. That issue is only amplified, concerningly so, when it comes to criminal cases involving high-profile figures.
The latest instance of this is in response to reports in the ever-evolving saga around Sean “Diddy” Combs, particularly since his September arrest when he was charged with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution. (He denied all charges.)
Early on in the discourse, much of the social media speculation was in response to the more sensationalized details trickling out of the 14-page indictment such as the now infamous “1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant” described as “freak-off supplies” that were seized from Combs’ home.
But most recently, social media users have been digging into the boundless belly of the internet for videos, photos and all else they can find on any celebrity in the 2000s that even marginally associated themselves with Combs’ White Parties and his allegedly more perilous freak-offs. (The discourse has often woefully conflated the two.)
The resulting narrative suggests that those celebs benefited from, participated in, or knew and did nothing about the alleged sex trafficking that took place at Combs’ events. Those are characteristics that contribute to being an enabler, which is a criminal offense — and a lot more complicated than what is being discussed on social media.
Carol Merchasin, an attorney who’s headed up cases involving sexual misconduct in religious, faith-based and spiritual communities, said that the Human Trafficking Act calls those perpetrators “beneficiaries.” “That is they are people who knew or should have known what was happening,” she told me, “and they benefited from what was happening, understood or should have understood that it was wrong.”
The purported evidence spreading on Conspiracy Theory Twitter, then, is questionable at best:
A 2016 clip of Usher on “The Howard Stern Radio Show,” where the singer coyly reflects on living with Combs when he was only 13 and 14 years old and seeing “very curious things taking place” there that he “didn’t necessarily understand.” Ashton Kutcher’s 2019 interview on “Hot Ones” where host Sean Burns asked him about Combs’ parties and the actor cryptically began his reply with, “I’ve got a lot I can’t tell.” Then proceeded to say nothing of any value at all.
When Damon Dash was asked in September about the now-viral photo of him, Aaliyah, Combs’ ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, Jay-Z and Combs hanging out at one of the media mogul’s parties in 2000, he said, “Ain’t shit happen in the Hamptons. That’s the day I met…that me and Aaliyah…we hung out there and then we left.”
Interviews and photos like these might not preclude certain celebrities’ knowledge and benefit in the trafficking, but it certainly doesn’t prove it either. Then there are the more obtuse details folks have used to try to support ungrounded narratives.
Around the time of Combs’ incarceration, social media users noticed that P!nk scrubbed her X account and suggested that the two events were related. P!nk, whose only link to Combs, as far as one could tell, is that they were both in the cultural zeitgeist at the same time in the 2000s, felt the need to clarify that she deleted her profile in February.
“There is no truth to the rumors spread this week,” she added, “and while I’ve met people in passing, I’m not associated with any of the people mentioned.”
It’s true that literally everyone who was anyone (and everyone who wanted to be anyone) in the ‘90s or 2000s likely encountered, partied, collaborated or was in a photo with Combs. Because he was just that ubiquitous — and highly influential. A perhaps more complicated truth is that many of Combs’ soirees were especially the place to be for the Black elite at the time.
Dimitrios Kambouris via Getty Images
As Usher mentioned in that same interview with Stern, Biggie Smalls, Lil’ Kim, Craig Mack, Faith Evans, Jodeci and Mary J. Blige were also there. Kim Kardashian, Anna Wintour and Clive Davis rolled through as well. In a recent The Hollywood Reporter piece, Amy Dubois Barnett, a former editor-in-chief of Honey and Ebony magazines who attended one of Combs’ White Parties, looked back on their invaluable place in the culture.
“It was emblematic of a moment in time when hip-hop was at its zenith, a powerful epoch in which the urban world (music, fashion, media) drove pop culture in New York City and around the world,” Barnett wrote.
If you keep going back into the archives, it might be easier to find celebs who didn’t brush shoulders with Combs at some point. Conspiracy theories don’t make way for a productive conversation about the disturbing allegations against the mogul and the culture that helped foster his sex trafficking enterprise.
“The discourse has lost the plot,” music critic Craig Jenkins wrote in a recent Vulture piece. “The AI parodies and the tenuously evidenced theories only make it harder for people to know what to believe when victims need moral clarity and support.”
It also does nothing to create a better understanding of what an enabler actually is and who in Combs’ circle — including among his celeb peers — could be accountable as one.
While Merchasin understands that there will obviously be speculation around a high-profile case like Combs’, she said, “I think their speculation will be more focused if they understand the Trafficking Act.”
Eric Robert via Getty Images
The Combs indictment plainly states that the enablers who would be legally accountable are those such as members of the Combs enterprise (his record label, spirits and apparel lines, etc.), personal assistants, security staff, household staff and other business employees. These are people who, as it outlines, facilitated the freak-offs by doing things like booking the hotel rooms, stocking them with supplies including controlled substances, cleaning the rooms afterward and arranging travel for the victims too.
Those who might have attended one of the parties, thought something seemed awry but didn’t know for sure, and leaving without telling anyone about it is considered a much lower risk situation, Merchasin said.
“All of these things in the law are really a measure of risk,” she said. “If you were the person who was facilitating or promoting these parties or any part of the activities of trafficking, you’re in a high-risk position right now.”
Merchasin offered another example: “If you attended the party, you didn’t really know that it was trafficking. You thought the people at the party had all been invited and consented to be at the party. Maybe you knew that there were drugs at the party, but that’s not trafficking.”
That last part was what Barnett described in her piece, where she wrote that she “never personally saw anything illicit other than some drug use in corners.”
“You have to reasonably know that trafficking was happening,” Merchasin emphasized, “and then you had to benefit in some way financially through receiving gifts or services or advantages of some kind.”
To be classified as a beneficiary, one would have to have reasonably known or should have known, as the lawyer said earlier in our conversation, and knowingly benefited. How do you determine whether someone should have known, in this case, what was actually going on at the freak-offs?
“Well, that’s what the job of the lawyers is,” she said. “It depends on how far or how near they were to the activities. The whole purpose of the beneficiary portion of the Human Trafficking Act is saying the trafficker does not act alone. It requires a lot of coordination in lots of cases.”
And it ultimately comes down to how the jury will find the details presented in the case. They will decide whether it’s impossible that a person didn’t know about the trafficking or whether they were, as Merchasin described it, “too far removed” from the situation to have known.
“Because it’s all about knowledge,” she said. “It’s about that you knew. Those people who I think we could say in common language enabled him and they benefited from the trafficking.”
These enablers would have benefitted in a financial way, as Merchasin explained, through receiving gifts, services or other advantages. That includes the people or businesses Combs might have paid to stay silent or those that benefited from allowing him to continue, as was allegedly the case in the 2017 sex trafficking lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein. The now jailed Weinstein was named along with his brother Bob Weinstein and the Weinstein Company.
“They benefited by allowing him to continue,” Merchasin said. “And so the job of the prosecutors will be to show that benefit and that they knew, or should have known, if they were there and they saw this. Then they’re kind of a step up on the ladder of getting to that they knew.”
The attorney suggests that it might also behoove those speculating online about enablers or beneficiaries in the Combs case to look back at previous examples of those in sex trafficking charges against high-profile figures to get a better sense of who could be accountable. Beyond Weinstein, R. Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere all had beneficiaries.
Shareif Ziyadat via Getty Images
Merchasin pointed to Clare Bronfman, who harbored one of Raniere’s victims and committed credit card fraud on his behalf. She was sentenced to almost seven years in prison.
“So in Raniere — this is just my opinion, I don’t have any knowledge of it directly — it seemed that they charged a lot of people as beneficiaries in the hope that they would be able to build their case by having those people give them evidence they needed and be released,” she said.
Considering the types of people mentioned in Combs’ indictment (business associates and the like), the list in this case could also extend pretty far. But, as Merchasin has stated, they had to have known about and benefited from the trafficking.
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Still, the attorney said she’d be concerned even if a person just attended a freak-off.
“Well, you know, listen, lawyers are always worried,” Merchasin said. “I’d be worried just because there’s a net that’s coming around people. So, I would imagine if I were people around him, whether I was a participant or whether I was an enabler, I would be getting a lawyer.”
Clearly, determining who could be an enabler in Combs’ case and any others like his is not so simple — and certainly can’t come from an out-of-context photo, video clip or social media activity.
If folks online actually want to thoughtfully engage with their followers about the case, and help the survivors find some sense of peace, they’d be better off informing themselves of the law.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.