Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded for mercy, apologized to his sex trafficking accusers, and said he’s learned his lesson before he was sentenced on Friday to over four years in prison for transporting hired male escorts across state lines for “freak offs” with ex-girlfriends.
Donning a cream-colored sweater over a white button-down and black pants, the 55-year-old hip-hop mogul said he’s lost his self-respect and hates himself in a speech to US District Judge Arun Subramanian in a packed lower Manhattan courtroom.
“My actions were disgusting, shameful, and sick,” Combs said. “I was sick, sick from the drugs. I was out of control. I needed help, but I didn’t get the help. Because of that, I could make no excuse. And I can really make no excuse because I knew better.”
Combs said that he wanted to apologize to two of his former girlfriends — R&B singer Cassie Ventura and “Jane” — who both played a central role in his criminal trial and who prosecutors alleged he sex-trafficked and coerced into his freak off sex sessions.
“I want to personally apologize, again, to Cassie Ventura for any harm or hurt that I’ve caused her emotionally or physically,” Combs said.
He added, “I would like to apologize to Jane. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry that I brought you into my mess.”
The “I’ll Be Missing You” rapper also apologized to his mother, saying, while choking back tears, that he had “failed” her as a son.
Combs told the judge that he’s been “humbled and broken to my core.”
“I hate myself right now. I’ve been stripped down for nothing. I really truly am sorry for it all, no matter what they say,” he said.
“I want your honor to know that, given the chance, people can change. I know I’ve changed,” said Combs. “I know I’ll never put my hands on another person again.”
Before Combs addressed the court, six of his children made emotional pleas for why their father should be released from behind bars and told the judge that Combs was a changed man.
“He is still our dad and we still need him present in our lives,” Combs’ 18-year-old daughter, Jessie, said.
Ahead of his sentencing hearing, Combs urged the judge, in a four-page letter filed with the court on Thursday, to take mercy on him.
“I take full responsibility and accountability for my past wrongs,” Combs wrote to Subramanian. “This has been the hardest 2 years of my life, and I have no one to blame for my current reality and situation but myself.”
Before the sentencing hearing, several people, including Ventura and a former Combs assistant who accused him of rape, filed impact statements with the court.
Ventura — Combs’ ex of more than 10 years and the prosecution’s star witness at the rapper’s seven-week trial this past summer — asked the judge in her letter to consider the “many lives” Combs has “upended with his abuse and control.”
During the trial, the prosecution showed the jury a key piece of evidence — the infamous hotel-beatdown security video showing Combs kicking and dragging Ventura as she tried to leave a freak off.
Combs, in his pre-sentencing letter to the judge, said that “the scene and images of me assaulting Cassie play over and over in my head daily.”
Following the sentencing, Ventura’s lawyers, Douglas Wigdor and Meredith Firetog, said in a statement: “While nothing can undo the trauma caused by Combs, the sentence imposed today recognizes the impact of the serious offenses he committed.”
“We are confident that with the support of her family and friends, Ms. Ventura will continue healing knowing that her bravery and fortitude have been an inspiration to so many,” they said.
Combs has been locked up at a notorious federal Brooklyn jail since his September 2024 arrest and indictment, and he was hoping to soon be released with a sentence of time served.
In July, the jury found Combs guilty of two federal counts of transportation to engage in prostitution — known as the Mann Act — but acquitted him of the more severe charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
That acquittal allowed Combs to dodge a possible sentence of life in prison.
In clearing Combs of those top charges, the jury rejected the US government’s claims that the music tycoon sex trafficked Ventura and another ex of his for his freak off sex encounters, and that he ran a criminal enterprise.
Ventura, who dated Combs on and off between 2007 and 2018, and another ex-girlfriend who testified under the pseudonym “Jane,” told the jury during the trial that they were brutally beaten by Combs.
Prosecutors, in their pre-sentencing court filing, argued that Combs “engaged in violence and put others in fear” and should be sentenced to at least 11 years and three months in prison.
Combs’ attorneys argued at his trial that the hip-hop and fashion entrepreneur, once worth close to a billion dollars, had a violent side, but was no sex trafficker.
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