Diddy's ex-"Making The Band" singer Sara Rivers is coming at his neck in a new lawsuit, and the allegations stem from her time on the popular MTV series.
via: Rolling Stone
Rivers has filed a new $60 million lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs, alleging the mogul sexually harassed her and stroked her breasts during filming of the hit MTV reality show. Rivers claims that after she refused Combs’ alleged sexual advances, he retaliated against her and blackballed her from the music industry. The R&B singer, who was part of the musical group Da Band, described her allegedly hellish filming experience in a massive 148-page complaint filed Friday as the lookback window was set to close on otherwise expired claims linked to New York City’s Gender Motivated Violence Act.
More than a dozen other plaintiffs filed separate claims against Combs Friday to make the same deadline. Rivers, who went by Sara Stokes on the show, claims Combs controlled her sleeping schedule, mocked her eating disorder, yelled at her and forced her to do menial manual labor without pay, including the time he notoriously made Rivers and her bandmates walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back to bring him a cheesecake. Beyond what the suit calls “inhumane” working conditions, Rivers claims she endured Combs sexually harassing her. The music executive allegedly made humiliating comments about her physical appearance, including the time he purportedly inspected her backside and remarked “everything needed to get firmed up.”
In an encounter Rivers labeled a battery, she accused Combs of cornering her in his recording studio, raising his right arm to block her movement and asking “in a low, sensual voice” if she needed anything. She claims Combs then “ran his left hand across her breasts while repeating the phrase if she needs anything to let him know.” Rivers says she bolted from the encounter in shock and disbelief. The complaint names more than two dozen defendants, including Combs’ mother Janice, Universal Music, MTV, and several other Bad Boy officials. (Rolling Stone has reached out to Combs, Janice Combs and Universal Music for comment.)
“This is yet another example of false claims being filed against Mr. Combs. No matter how many lawsuits are filed — especially by individuals who refuse to put their own names behind their claims — it won’t change the fact that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted or sex trafficked anyone — man or woman, adult or minor. We live in a world where anyone can file a lawsuit for any reason,” Combs’ legal team said in a statement. Despite around-the-clock filming during three seasons from 2002 to 2004, Rivers claims she was never compensated for appearing on Making the Band. Instead, she claims the band members were only given $5,000 in cash after tour performances. The only other time Rivers says she received a check was when she was allegedly “pressured” into signing a publishing agreement with a company owned by Janice Combs.
“Diddy made it known, if plaintiff did not sign, the group would not continue,” her lawsuit claims. In exchange for her signature, Rivers alleges she received a one-time payment of $25,000. Rivers claims her rejection of Combs’ advances along with her questioning of contracts and her refusal to fulfill a Bad Boy directive that she pose for Playboy led Combs to abruptly fire her and disband the entire group. She alleges that after she was was banished from Bad Boy, her attempts to continue her music career were thwarted by Combs. Rivers claims she once had an offer on the table from Capitol Records but later learned that Combs “interfered and personally called executives at the label telling them not to sign” with her.
In addition to Rivers’ complaint, Combs was hit with claims from more than a dozen others Friday in the final hours of the GMVA claim revival window. Initially passed in 2000 with a seven-year statute of limitations on claims, the GMVA was amended in 2022 to allow victims to file otherwise time-barred lawsuits during a lookback window spanning March 1, 2023 to March 1, 2025. Scores of accusers have sued Combs during this time, starting with Combs’ longtime partner Casandra “Cassie” Ventura. In her lawsuit filed Nov. 16, 2023, Cassie cited the GMVA as she claimed Combs subjected her to sex trafficking , severe beatings and rape while acting as her label boss and intimate partner. Aspiring musical artist Seven Güzel filed her own 44-page lawsuit Friday alleging Combs groomed and raped her on multiple occasions after they first met in 2017.
Already a signed artist at the time, Güzel says Combs lavished her with praise, frequently invoked his power to influence her career, and regularly plied her with drugs and alcohol. “During the first instance of sexual assault, Combs forcibly compelled plaintiff to perform oral sex before violently raping her. This occurred without her consent and despite her explicit refusal to engage in any sexual acts with him,” the lawsuit states. Güzel claims she fell into a cycle of abuse with Combs, where he would alternate between sexually assaulting and humiliating her and then showering her with “excessive kindness.”
She claims Combs coerced her into taking pills that rendered her unconscious. Güzel says one alleged attack happened at a studio owned by Sony Music in New York while another took place on a flight. She alleges she awoke on the flight to find Combs raping her. According to her lawsuit, Combs’ chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, helped facilitate and cover up the alleged abuse. “What is playing out at the moment still feels very surreal and it has put me in a whirlwind and rollercoaster of heavy emotions,” Güzel tells Rolling Stone. “To see other victims speak out and describe in detail very similar things that have happened to me is something nobody can prepare you for. It took me months to even read Cassie’s lawsuit. It was extremely difficult to process to say the least.”
Güzel says she decided to step forward now in the hope she might help other aspiring artists in the music industry. “I hope what I am doing gives young women and men the courage to stand up for themselves,” she says. “Artists are an important part of our society and need to be protected at all cost. What was done by Sean Combs to me as alleged in my complaint is unacceptable.” Güzel’s lawyer, Jordan Merson, says Combs subjected his client to a pattern of abuse. “Seven’s case is very similar to Cassie’s. She was up-and-coming and extremely talented, and Sean Combs said he was taking her under his wing. Instead, he put her through hell for four of five years,” Merson tells Rolling Stone. “He would subject her to horrific sexual abuse and then he would use his power to just keep her in his orbit.” Both Khorran and Sony were listed as defendants in Güzel’s lawsuit. Attempts to reach representatives for both were not immediately successful Friday. Merson filed a second lawsuit Friday on behalf of seven other plaintiffs with separate claims against Combs spanning a 20-year period.
Latasha Forbes claims she was 17 years old in 1994 when Combs allegedly raped her at Bad Boy’s offices in New York. Billie Cummings alleges she was 14 or 15 years old in 1995 when Combs allegedly molested her by grabbing her vagina during a video shoot for the Notorious B.I.G. in New York. Plaintiff Ian Fearon claims Combs violently sexually assaulted him in 2003 when he was 19. Yet another lawsuit filed Friday was entered on behalf of a Jane Doe who alleges she was 16 years old when Combs allegedly assaulted her in 1993. The plaintiff claims she had just given birth to a child shortly before the incident but managed to make her way to what she thought was an audition to be a backup dancer for Combs. She alleges she ended up at a home on Long Island where Combs handed her a drink that she believes was laced.
Jane Doe claims she was rendered completely unconscious and woke up in the back of a moving vehicle hours later with signs that she had been ”severely damaged and brutalized” in a sexual assault, according to the lawsuit. Texas attorney Tony Buzbee also filed seven more lawsuits against Combs in the final hours of the GMVA revival window. In one of the new complaints filed Friday, the lawyer who first sued Combs last October said he was representing a John Doe who was 14 years old in 2006 when Combs allegedly assaulted the minor in a hotel in Manhattan. “With the deadline for New York’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act expiring tomorrow, it’s clear that opportunists are rushing to file last-minute, meritless claims,” Combs’ legal team said. “Mr. Combs remains confident he will prevail in court.”
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