Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs has filed a $100m (£80.5m) lawsuit against NBC, the makers of a recent documentary about his life and upcoming sex trafficking trial.

The trial begins on 5 May and Combs will remain detained in the notorious Metropolitan Detention Centre in New York until it does. His defence team have a mammoth task ahead, made all the more challenging by the release of documentaries like Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy, which aired on 14 January in the US.

On Wednesday, Combs’ lawyers said he was suing the TV network, its streaming service Peacock and the production company Ample over the documentary. It delves into Combs’ early years, his transformation from Sean Combs to Puffy and Love and Diddy, just a few of his many appellations, as well as his childhood, his career in music and the mounting allegations of sexual assault and abuse. Needless to say it does not paint Combs in the most favourable light.

The lawsuit claims Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy featured untrue and defamatory statement about Combs and says the ‘entire premise of the documentary assumes that Mr Combs has committed numerous heinous crimes, including serial murder, rape of minors and sex trafficking of minors’.

It adds that the programme ‘maliciously and baselessly jumps to the conclusion that Mr Combs is a “monster”’ and included claims that makers ‘knew were false or published with reckless disregard as to whether they were false or not’. The three companies accused have not yet commented.

As such, Combs is seeking $100m in damages for the ‘reputational and economic harm’ caused by the documentary. Given that he has repeatedly denied the heinous allegations he currently faces, and that he plans to plead not guilty in court, it is hardly surprising that Combs has responded in this way.

Even without the documentary, though, Combs’ reputation has taken a battering. He faces more than 30 separate civil lawsuits, as well as charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution.

He has been accused of rape and physical assault, as well as kidnapping, drugging and coercing women into sexual activities sometimes through the use of firearms and threats of violence. Some of his accusers claim to have been minors at the time of the alleged assault. Combs’ lawyer said, ‘In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr Combs never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone – man or woman, adult or minor.’

While the extent of these allegations will indeed be tried in court, opinions began to turn on Combs even before his arrest in October. Last May, after Combs had publicly denied any wrongdoing, a video of him brutally beating his then-girlfriend Casandra ‘Cassie’ Venture was leaked online. The 2016 surveillance video obtained by CNN showed Combs violently dragging and kicking her outside his hotel room as she lay motionless on the floor. Two days after the video was leaked, Combs issued an apology video.

‘My behaviour on that video is inexcusable,’ he said. ‘I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I was disgusted then when I did it. I’m disgusted now. I went and I sought professional help. I got into therapy, going to rehab. I had to ask God for his mercy and grace. I’m so sorry.’ Ventura’s lawsuit featuring allegations of assault were settled out of court.

Former music executive Daniel Evans, who used to work with Combs, told the BBC that the Ventura video was ‘not the first time I’ve seen that temper’. He recalled an encounter at the Bad Boy Records studio in New York in 1997 when Combs allegedly threatened a colleague and said: ‘I have so much money now that I could hire someone to kill you, and nobody would know. No one would miss you. No one would know anything.’

‘The guy in the video with Cassie is almost identical to the guy who threatened the employee,’ Evans continued. ‘So, you wonder, has anything changed?’.

In November, it was reported that Combs had broken prison rules by contacting potential witnesses in his upcoming trial. Prosecutors allege that he was using other inmates’ telephone accounts and three-way calls to speak to people who are not on his approved contact list.

They also allege that a review of recorded calls found that Combs had instructed his family to contact potential witnesses in his case. Prosecutors also allege that Combs has been orchestrating social media posts to ‘influence a potential jury pool’, including a birthday post from his children, and that he was tampering with witness statements during ‘multiple texts’ and ‘multiple calls’ from prison.

However, Combs’ defence team claimed that government prosecutors illegally seized his personal notes during a search of his jail cell. They argued some of the materials detailed information that is protected under attorney-client privilege.

‘The defendant has demonstrated an uncanny ability to get others to do his bidding – employees, family members, and inmates alike,’ the prosecutors argued in response to Combs’ plea to be released under 24-hour house arrest. ‘There is no reason to believe that private security personnel would be immune.’

The trial is already earmarked as one of the most high-profile sex trafficking trials in modern history, regardless of the impact of documentaries like The Making of a Bad Boy. Nevertheless, if his defamation claims stand up in court, then its creators will pay the price.