Music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was found not guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering charges by a jury Wednesday after a blockbuster eight-week trial — and found guilty of two more minor charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.
It’s a verdict that will disappoint many. But in some ways, the reckoning has already happened. It began last year, quietly but unmistakably, when singer Casandra Ventura (known professionally as Cassie) filed a civil lawsuit under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
In it, Ventura detailed years of alleged abuse, coercion and surveillance by the former partner who launched her career and then, she claims, nearly destroyed her life.
She filed the suit days before the Act’s one-year expiry window, and the lawsuit was settled behind closed doors within 24 hours. It was a resolution that looked like closure on paper, complete with a statement from Combs that said he wished Ventura “the best.”
But it opened the door to something far messier.
A string of lawsuits followed, with allegations ranging from rape to drugging to sex trafficking to forced labor to arson. Authorities launched a federal investigation. Then came the trial testimony from assistants, the security staff, ex-girlfriends, and claims that ranged from the grotesque to the extreme.
Like with Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly, the Combs trial became a cultural mirror, reflecting what we still struggle to name and hold accountable: the way fame, money, and masculinity intertwine to obscure systemic abuse.
In the years since #MeToo exploded, the legal system has been inconsistent in its response. Weinstein and Kelly went to prison — then Weinstein’s New York conviction was thrown out, and his retrial resulted in him being guilty of just one criminal sexual act.
Author Neil Gaiman reached an non-disclosure agreement settlement with a woman who accused him of sexual assault while she lived at his home in Woodstock, New York (he strongly denies any non-consensual activity), and then sued her for half a million dollars for violating that NDA by talking publicly about the allegations.
Monica Lewinsky was semi-rehabilitated and re-entered public life, having been the butt of cruel jokes for decades. Comedian Louis C.K. was accused by five women of sexual misconduct, and then he publicly admitted that the allegations were true before releasing a weird film about an older man who’s interested in underage girls. He’s since toured multiple times and won a Grammy.
And now Diddy has been cleared of sex trafficking and racketeering, but still faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the two acts of prostitution the jury convicted him on.
In other words, it’s not clear whether the movement “worked.” The huge backlash against gender equality in recent years resulted in an emboldened alt-right and an explosion in tradwife content on social media (step right up, Ballerina Farm, Nara Smith and the pronatalists.) Powerful men fall and rise again; civil suits get settled quietly; survivors are discredited or simply disappear from public memory.
The Diddy case felt a little different — not because it’s uniquely horrifying, but because of the eerie normalcy of what it revealed:
The assistant, “Mia”, who posed jokey memes on social media about her “mentor” and accused him of raping her for fun (Diddy was never charged with assaulting Mia).
The partner surveilled, referred to as “slut” and “ho,” and allegedly beaten.
Ventura’s mother, who says she was blackmailed by Combs for $20,000, but the jury found him not guilty of racketeering.
The testimony given by an eight-months-pregnant woman who gave birth as the trial was ongoing.
The entourage who witnessed it all; the stylist who allegedly saw some of the violence and became a confidante.
Combs’ most recent girlfriend, testifying under the pseudonym “Jane,” broke down in tears as she described so-called “hotel nights” — one of which lasted three and a half days — where she said she'd been coerced into repeated sexual acts while under the influence of ecstasy, although a jury found Diddy not guilty based on the evidence. Jane described being trapped financially, admitting while on the stand that Combs still pays her rent. Once again, we heard about how much was an open secret.
One of the most striking moments didn’t come from inside the courtroom, but from the quiet, calm statement issued by Ventura’s husband, Alex Fine, addressing a question that he says he’s been asked repeatedly since the trial began: how he feels about his wife testifying.
“I have felt tremendous pride and overwhelming love for Cass. I have felt profound anger that she has been subjected to sitting in front of a person who tried to break her,” he said.
In a culture that so often frames women’s suffering through voyeurism or judgment, it was refreshing to see a man refusing to center himself. I’m not a hero, nor am I a victim myself, he told the world: I’m just a supportive witness.
Courts are designed to measure evidence against specific charges, but cultures endure. We’ve now heard too many variations of this same story to believe it's exceptional. A powerful man. A much younger woman. A dynamic of control masquerading as mentorship, love, or opportunity, or perhaps all three.
The Diddy case was a test of the afterlife of #MeToo. Now, it’s not just about believing women; it’s about what happens after we say we do.
In a world where controversy is currency — where Kanye West (who tried to get into the courtroom during the trial after tweeting “Support Puff,” but wasn’t allowed in) released a song last week with Combs’ son called “Diddy Free,” hot on the heels of “Heil Hitler” — it’s hard to feel positive about that afterlife.
And it will have undoubtedly been hard for the women who testified during this trial to watch Combs celebrate in the immediate aftermath of the verdict, before his supporters in the gallery began to clap and cheer, and his lawyers slapped each other on the back.
The “dream team” that Combs’ family was chanting about in the courtroom today convinced the jury on a number of counts. But this trial has deservedly cast a reputational shadow.
At the very least, women have shown that they are still willing to speak up about their abuse at the hands of powerful men. We can only hope that gives those with the worst impulses pause.
