Woman accuses Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of assault, filming incident 20 years ago | Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs

A woman claims Sean “Diddy” Combs and his bodyguard sexually assaulted her about 20 years ago and distributed a video of their heinous attack, “including selling it as pornography,” according to a new lawsuit filed Tuesday.

“It’s a pain that reaches deep into who you are,” the woman, Thalia Graves, said at a news conference hours after she filed her lawsuit against Combs.

“The combination of physical and emotional pain has created a cycle of suffering that is very difficult to break free from,” Graves also said. Throughout the press conference, Graves cried and wiped tears from his eyes.

The Guardian does not generally release the names of people who accuse Graves of sexual assault. Graves’ lead lawyer, Gloria Allred, said she had given permission for his name to be used.

Graves’ lawsuit was filed in federal court in Manhattan, and comes about a week after Combs was arrested on sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. He remains in a Brooklyn jail after being denied bail.

Graves said she met Combs in late 1999. Her boyfriend at the time worked as an executive at Bad Boy Records, Combs’ music label.

Court documents state that Graves regularly visited her boyfriend at Bad Boy Studios in New York City and often attended events at Combs’ home. Around the summer of 2001, Combs allegedly called Graves about her boyfriend’s job at the label, saying he wanted to meet with her and discuss her alleged performance issues.

Graves’ boyfriend “was determined to move up the ranks at Combs’ record company and, as a romantic partner, was committed to helping him,” court documents say. She agreed, and a few hours later, Combs showed up at her house; his security chief, Joseph Sherman, was driving.

When Graves got into Combs’ SUV, he gave her a glass of wine, which she drank. She began to feel dizzy and weak and “in retrospect, it is clear that Combs had medication put into the plaintiff’s drink, as a few sips of wine never had that effect,” the court documents state.

The SUV eventually arrived at the Bad Boy studio in Manhattan, and Graves followed Combs to a couch in a private room. Combs sat down next to Graves, and as he spoke, she “lost consciousness,” according to court documents.

When Graves woke up, “she was naked and her hands were tied behind her back with what looked like a plastic grocery bag.” Sherman allegedly grabbed Graves off the couch and “slammed” her face into a pool table.

Graves claims Combs came back into the room and raped her as she screamed in pain, calling for help. She passed out, and when she woke up, Sherman forced her to perform oral sex on him, the lawsuit says.

Graves lost consciousness and when she woke up, she dressed in a panic and ran away, fearing the men would return. Graves called a van driver, whom she and her family knew well, who came to pick her up.

The driver took Graves to the hospital and begged her to report the rape, but she was “shaking and crying hysterically” and couldn’t leave the car. Graves’ complaint says she was “terrified” of what Combs might do to her and her family if she spoke out against him.

Graves told her then-boyfriend everything, but instead of helping her, he told her not to report the assault, saying it would hurt her career. After the assault, and “repeatedly over the years,” Combs and Sherman contacted Graves and told her to keep quiet, “threatening repercussions” such as losing custody of her son.

Graves was afraid to stay in New York while Combs resided there and “fled” to Pennsylvania, eventually moving around over the years in an effort to stay away from him, court documents say.

Although Graves suffered trauma following the alleged assault, it intensified dramatically in November 2023, when Combs’ former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, filed a mass abuse complaint against him. Graves claims her ex-boyfriend brought up Ventura’s complaint and revealed that Combs had videotaped her assault, according to court documents.

To Graves’ surprise, his ex said Combs and Sherman showed him and several men the video of the assault. He told Graves that Combs and Sherman “had a pattern of recording women engaging in sexual acts without their consent and making the videos available to the public, including selling the tapes as pornography.”

The Combs lawsuit is the latest in a long line of legal setbacks: After Ventura’s trial, which was settled in a single day, several other accusers filed civil complaints against him. The indictment against Combs appears to rely heavily on Ventura’s accusations.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Neither Combs’ representative nor his attorney immediately responded to a request for comment on Graves’ complaint. It was not immediately clear whether Sherman has a contact for media inquiries or an attorney.