‘The Fall of Diddy’: 5 Things We Learned From ID’s New Docuseries

Amanda Bell January 27, 2025, 11:00 pm

There’s a new docuseries about Sean “Diddy” Combs hitting the airwaves — this time, it’s a four-part docuseries on Investigation Discovery called The Fall of Diddy, presented by the same company that produced Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV.

The first half from the docuseries, “The Making of a Mogul,” aired Monday (January 27) night, and the rest will on Tuesday evening. Those audiences who happened to catch Peacock’s recent documentary on the same embattled artist will find it offers some familiar faces bringing their harrowing testimonials, including that of his lifelong friend who saw his upbringing firsthand, the hairdresser who witnessed Combs’ girlfriend Cassie Ventura being abused by him, and family members of the victims of the community college crushing incident. (See more about those stories here.) There are also a lot of new and unique details offered by this docuseries (the pacing of which is a bit more forgiving than its predecessor, by the way).

Here’s a look at everything we learned from ID’s The Fall of Diddy.

VIBE‘s editor-in-chief was threatened with physical harm over a disagreement.

Danyel Smith, who was the first woman leader of her magazine, said that she did a cover shoot with Combs for September 1997’s double issue, which featured him wearing wings as a tongue-in-check statement for his “Bad Boy” persona. When Combs demanded to see the images before publication, which was against policy, she declined, and he reportedly threatened her: “He said he would be seeing me dead in a trunk if I did not show it to him.” She turned the matter over to her lawyer, who demanded and ultimately received a written apology, but she later learned that he was seen wandering the halls of the company and trying to find her in person.

Other Howard University students remembered seeing him attack another woman.

An anonymous woman who went to college at Howard at the same time as Combs revealed — with her face removed from view due to being “nervous” about sharing her story — that one day in 1988, she and her roommate witnessed him beating a woman with a belt outside of their window. When they insisted he stop, he yelled back for them to stay out of it and pushed the victim back into her building.

One bystander almost got attacked over a T-shirt.

Dewitt Gilmore, who was involved with clubs in New York at the time, reported being side-swiped by Combs in traffic after he dared to wear a T-shirt that said “Death Row East,” an emblem of rival West Coast boss Suge Knight’s crew that was trying to make a stand on the East Coast ahead of the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.

His childhood friend sometimes had to drive home his dates after fights.

According to the friend Combs grew up with, who also offered some shudder-inducing stories in the Peacock doc, the romantic relationships he had in his youth had a physical element that would sometimes involve him throwing his dates out of cars after a tirade of jealousy, to the point that he had to even drive his girls home. “It just never seemed to get better with him and relationships,” Tim Patterson explained. “Any girl that’s with Sean has to be fixed to Sean’s specs.” One such included the mother of his child, Mysa Hilton, whom he allegedly attacked while she was holding their son.

5 Shocking Revelations from 'Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy'

A shooting victim insists he was the one who did it.

According to several contributors to the docuseries, in a 1999 club shooting, Combs was allegedly involved in shooting someone during a December 26, 1999, club incident. Wardel Fenderson, a driver, revealed this was the first time he’d spoken about the incident. After picking up both Combs and then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, he saw the rapper holding a handgun, and they went to Club New York. Natania Griffin, the victim of the shooting, also spoke up in the episode and revealed that she saw both Combs and rapper Jamal “Shyne” Barrow were armed (which he’d later deny) and backing away from a crowd of detractors when Griffin was then shot in the face. Fenderson was instructed by Combs’ security to escort the rapper and Lopez out of the premises, and he allegedly saw Combs ditch his gun through an open window. Fenderson also claimed Combs offered him $50,000 to take the heat for it, but he decided to cooperate with the prosecutors to implicate Combs in the incident and possession of the gun. Meanwhile, Griffin also identified Combs directly as the shooter and received death threats and taunts as a result. Combs was ultimately found not guilty, while Barrow was convicted and later accused him of betraying him.

If you or someone you know is the victim of domestic abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233.