The forthcoming sex trafficking trial of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, which is due to start on 5 May, has a lot of A-listers quaking in their boots. It’s not a good time to have friends in high places and it’s an even worse time to have friends awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York.

Combs was indicted in September on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution and faces more than 100 allegations of sexual assault and abuse spanning a 30-year period. He denies all allegations and plans to plead not guilty in court.

The lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who is representing more than 100 claimants says he plans to expose ‘the powerful people […] who enabled this conduct behind closed doors’.

While Combs has worked with, befriended or been pictured with almost every big name in Hollywood, the only other ‘household name’ to be implicated so far is Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter. He has been accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl with Combs at a party in 2000 – something he vehemently denies.

It’s certainly a time of growing unease for those with ties to Combs. Jennifer Lopez, who dated the rapper between 1999 and 2001, was recently bombarded with questions about the case after a screening of her film Unstoppable in LA. She stopped signing autographs when she was asked about the allegations and swiftly left the venue.

A video of Ashton Kutcher, a close friend of Combs’, from his Hot Ones interview in 2019 where he was asked about Combs’ infamous ‘freak off’ parties has also recently resurfaced. Host Sean Evans said, ‘Diddy party stories, they’re our genre of anecdote, if you have one.’ Kutcher then responded, ‘I’ve got a lot I can’t tell so, umm, I can’t tell that one either. I mean I’m actually cycling through them… Diddy party stories, man. That was like some weird memory lane.’

Another name being banded around is Mary J. Blige, who was signed to the label Combs’ was working at, Uptown Records, in 1988 and credits him for launching her career. At 18, she became the youngest and first female artists signed to the label.

Combs was the executive producer of her first album, What’s the 411?, which peaked at six on the Billboard 200 chart. They worked together again in 2003 on Blige’s sixth album, Love & Life, and apparently clashed during production, parting ways after it was released.

Regardless, in the years that followed the pair have maintained a close friendship and have often celebrated each other during interviews. ‘Mary J. Blige is one of the greatest storytellers in R&B history,’ Combs once told People. ‘She has created a lane for women around the world to speak their truth to power, so nobody deserves this success more than her.’ Blige has also called Combs a ‘huge inspiration’ and said he ‘wanted all this for me more than I wanted it myself’.

Blige has also collaborated and remained friends with Carter over the years, having first worked together in 1996 on his song ‘Can’t Knock the Hustle’ from his debut album, Reasonable Doubt. In 2008, they went on tour together for three months and released a song called ‘You’re Welcome’. Ten years later, Carter and his wife Beyoncé threw Blige a lavish party at the Chateau Marmont to celebrate the Oscar nominations she received for her performance in Mudbound and for co-writing the theme song. 

Shortly after two of Combs’ homes were raided by federal agents in March, Blige shared a cryptic post on Instagram. ‘Unfortunately, a lot of you all met me when I lacked boundaries and was a people pleaser,’ she wrote. ‘Let me reintroduce myself, I burn bridges as needed.’

While it is not clear whether the post is about Combs, many of her followers have interpreted it that way. One user commented, ‘Watch everybody throw each other under the bus’, while another wrote, ‘pretty sure it’s a reference to Diddy.’

At that time, only four people had filed lawsuits against Combs, including his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, who accused him of rape and sex trafficking. Her original lawsuit stated that she was ‘trapped for decades by Mr Combs, her ex-boyfriend, in a cycle of abuse and violence’.

At the time, Combs denied all allegations of abuse and accused Ventura of trying to extort him. Two months later, video footage of Combs physically assaulting Ventura in a hotel room in 2016 was leaked online. In the video, the rapper can be seen punching and kicking his girlfriend, who lies motionless on the floor.

Combs subsequently issued a public apology and filmed himself saying ‘my behaviour in that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted when I did it. I am disgusted now’. He then said he has since been to therapy and rehab and asked ‘God for his mercy’. Ventura and Combs settled for an undisclosed amount without going to court.

The video was certainly a turning point in the Combs investigation – at least in the court of public opinion. Now in detention, the rapper has been denied bail three times and has allegedly broken prison rules by using the phone accounts of at least eight other inmates to contact potential witnesses. Combs allegedly paid off one witness after calling and texting her 128 times over a four-day period.

The prosecution argued that he could not be trusted under house arrest given that he has an ‘uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding’.

Whether Blige, Kutcher, Lopez or anyone else Combs has been close with over the years will be called to give evidence in court remains to be seen – especially since none of them are implicated in the case.

Now that Carter faces his own set of allegations, it’s likely a worrying time for anyone who has ever been associated with the scene. Buzbee claims to have a long list of names of celebrities at his disposal. ‘The names will shock you,’ the lawyer said in a statement in October. ‘The day will come when we will name names other than Sean Combs, and there’s a lot of names. It’s a long list already, but because of the nature of this case, we are going to make damn sure, damn sure, that we’re right before we do that.’