Sean Combs: The Reckoning | part 1

0:00Rebecca Lavoie:I'm Rebecca Lavoie and this is You Can't Make This Up.

0:14Rebecca Lavoie:You Can't Make This Up is the podcast where we uncover the true stories behind your favorite Netflix documentaries and films. On today's episode, we take a closer look at the Netflix documentary series, Sean Combs, The Reckoning. If you live life like that too much, I think your intentions can get misinterpreted. My intentions were just to make everybody the best. Today, we're talking to executive producers Alexandria Stapleton and Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. Sean Combs went by many names, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Brother Love. In 2024, he got a new one, Defendant. The self-made music producer faced federal charges for sex trafficking and racketeering.

0:54Rebecca Lavoie:It was the culmination of a public life of ruthless business tactics and a secret life of sexual misconduct and abuse. The man who made stars out of hip-hop artists and of himself would finally have his comeuppance in front of a jury. The four-part Netflix series Sean Combs' The Reckoning is a staggering examination of the media mogul, music legend, and convicted offender. It features never-before-seen videos of Combs in the days before his arrest. It also offers exclusive interviews with those who allege he used violence to succeed in business and exploit women. He's devious. He's calculating.

1:30Master manipulating. I think in ways he's soulless.

1:45Rebecca Lavoie:And I'm joined by executive producers Alexandria Stapleton and Curtis 50 Cent Jackson. Welcome to You Can't Make This Up. Ah, you can't make this up. This is not. It's your boy 50 Cent live. We in here. I got Alex Paperton, award-winning director for this new project you haven't given a chance to see. Alex, why was making this documentary important to you? This film was really important to me because I think that I've been making documentaries for over 20 years. And it's very rare where you get a really big opportunity like this with a partner like, you know, Netflix to have the resources to unpack over three decades of like history of a community, of a culture and to tell the story of a man.

2:34And, you know, there were so many like fleeting headlines and there was so much craziness going around, you know, when all of these allegations started to publicly surface. I really wanted to take the time to present to an audience. Let me share this story. Let me do what I can to share this story with context, with, you know, different perspectives and a calm setting where you can just watch and be your own judge of what you think might have happened. And I think that there's these trials that happen in like American kind of pop culture, zeitgeist, you know, like the O.J. Simpson trial or the Harvey Weinstein, Unitaruser, and those are really fascinating stories because it's like the apex and the coming together of, you know, so many different universes.

3:24And I was up for the challenge.

3:27Rebecca Lavoie:50, we've seen you in front of the camera in music videos, as well as films and TV. Not everyone knows you've also been producing films, including documentaries. So why did you want to get behind this one? Well, I like to stay on the project still to number one. This is going to be the number one project. I said that in advance so people know I knew it was going to be the number one. And like this project, I looked at it and like I've always been vocal about like not agreeing or indulging in the same activities with these people within our culture. And because of that, because I've been that way for 20 years.

4:03But because of that, I fell into a slot where I become the voice that makes it clear that not everyone in hip-hop culture is comfortable with the things that you're going to see in a stocky series. And then if not, you haven't heard anyone else say anything. Everyone else is very subtle, not saying anything or doing anything. And there's a, I don't know, like mind your business or not, or just stay focused on what you got to focus on. You're ratting if you say something about something that's not going the right way within hip hop culture. And then when it's not the law enforcement, it's not ratting.

4:35It's just you not being in the grinch with the things that a person's doing or their temperament behaviors and things. And I just, I saw Alex out. I went and got the best.

4:44Rebecca Lavoie:50, what is your first memory of Sean Combs, and how did his reputation evolve through his long career? Well, I mean, one of his biggest contributions to hip-hop was the remakes. And that was him being in tune with Kulja and just going out and feeling the things that were going on in the nightlife. Because if you bought a single from any artist, it'd have the acapella, the instrumental, and the TV track on that, the wax. and the DJs would play an R &B song and put a hip hop drums under it. So it's mashing the two together that turned into this contribution to Jodeci and different productions. The hip hop R &B, like the Mary J.

5:26Blige, queen of hip hop, but R &B at the same time. That energy was able to be created through that.

5:32Rebecca Lavoie:Alex, this documentary comes at the tail end of a lot of other projects about Combs. Can you tell me why your series is coming out now? What made this story very unique was the amount of people that came forward to share a lot of intimate details about their dealings with him and being in his world. And I think by just the sheer volume of that, that takes a lot of time to sift through, you know, that takes a lot of time to understand what is valid, you know, to make sense of allegations and all of that. And to make sure that I think as a film that we were curating and putting together a really authentic project, a really authentic story.

6:15And so just based on that fact alone, it took a long time to sift through all of that. And I think that for both 50 and myself, we spoke with a lot of people. And, you know, there was a lot of conversations about who did we really want to represent this other side, this alternative side to, you know, what Sean Combs has put forward publicly. And I think that it's just the responsible thing to do to make sure that you're you're doing your due diligence, you know, to make sure that everything lines up accordingly.

6:48Rebecca Lavoie:The doc opens with this really explosive footage of Combs reacting in real time to updates in his federal investigation leading up to the criminal charges. Alex, what can you tell us about that footage? Well, the footage was very interesting when we first put our eyes on it. You've handled this with complete honor. I don't think it's working. I've listened. I've been a superb client, as you said. I jumped on the plane. I'm coming to New York. But I'm just like, I'm just running around waiting for a shoe to drop. You know, I think we knew immediately that this was very, you know, not only exclusive, but explosive to see.

7:31And I think that it became a part of, you know, one tool as a documentarian, one piece of the puzzle of, you know, putting together the story to use it and to edit it through each episode.

7:44Rebecca Lavoie:50, what was your reaction when you first saw this footage? He was documenting himself on his way to jail. You see what I'm saying? So you get a chance to see what he's thinking, how he's feeling, and just the state that he's in. So just that information from what you get from his arrest, like what happened specifically. It plays a picture. I think it's a powerful piece of the documentary because it's not a whole lot of made-up stuff. It's more people's expression and their perspective on what they experienced as Pamela. Alex, we hear from many of Combs' former collaborators and colleagues in the series, some for the first and only time.

8:24Rebecca Lavoie:Can you tell us a little bit about who participated? Yeah, well, I think because, once again, this spans so many decades, it was important to try to get people to come to interview and to share their stories from different time periods. because I think one of the unique things, again, about Sean is his ability to pivot and to change, you know, his brand and how people perceive him, even in the public sphere. We were able to speak with people who've known him for a very long time, going all the way back to his childhood, Tim Dobb-Patterson to one of his closest associates at Uptown who ended up creating Bad Boy Records with him, Kirk Burroughs.

9:05I was at Bad Boys starting from the day that we put the LLC together and Sean gave me 25 percent in stock and his mother Janice had 75 percent. I think that you'll see that they lead us through this journey, you know, over the decades and over the years. But later, we were able to secure interviews with close personal assistants like Capricorn Clark, who also testified in the trial, as well as, you know, making the band star Aubrey O'Day, who's a member of Danity Kane, all the way up to folks that were around him in his last few years, you know, before, you know, all of these legal things started to take place, like Little Rod.

9:48who produced. It was one of the producers on the Love album.

9:50Rebecca Lavoie:We heard throughout that some people were reluctant to talk for fear of retribution. Fifty, do you think your involvement in this film, your connections to the industry helped convince people to participate? I think so. You know, their comfortability, me being comfortable to say things that made them comfortable to tell their story. And it doesn't feel like you're doing it in a space that it won't be seen or heard because my involvement with it. Yeah. On the other hand, I have to say, I'm not sure. I've seen a documentary where so many people who were so close to the subject were willing to talk so candidly.

10:23Rebecca Lavoie:Alex, were you surprised by what some of these folks had to say? Yeah, the process of getting them to share was very lengthy because I think that there was a lot of fear in the air, a lot of anxiety about what does this mean if I go on camera and face an audience to say anything about my time and their perspectives of working with Sean or being in different types of relationships with him. And it was surprising that so many people sort of were like burning to get it out of themselves and to share with somebody. You know, I think a lot of people, again, I can't stress enough, like how many years, you know, this story covers, you know, you have people that have been living with the story of their truth for, you know, for 20 years, 10 years, 30 years.

11:13And so when you finally get a team of people that are like, hey, just, you know, come and sit, come and talk and no judgment. Just tell us the good times. Tell us the bad times. Just tell us everything that you can. I think that people really were, I don't want to use the word excited, but I think people were relieved, you know, to be able to have that opportunity to do so.

11:34Rebecca Lavoie:These aren't easy things to discuss on camera, for sure. 50, what did you think of Alex's ability to get these folks to open up and be so candid? Well, I knew that they would talk to her. I didn't know. The way it's placed impressed me because it told a story and it's so fair that anyone who thinks that I dislike him personally, when they watch the doc, they're going to understand that it's just telling the story. It's really done well. I think you know, she's an Emmy Award winning director. You know what I mean? I didn't go get the homeboy from up the street to help me out. Alex, we see in the documentary that Combs' childhood wasn't always easy.

12:12Rebecca Lavoie:Can you describe what his early life was like? His early life, based on what I was able to uncover through interviews and information that we were able to access, seemed to be complicated. You know, I think that just out the gate, a child growing up without a parent is a very difficult thing without a father. but then to come to the realization, you know, that your father is no longer with you because he was murdered. I think that all of those dynamics would definitely be a part of shaping, you know, a child and how they might see the world. My father, his brain's blown out like on Central Park West.

12:49I did the research. They said my mother had brought me to the funeral on the full-length chinchilla. It was like a sigh of relief, you know what I'm saying? I think that I finally knew that what I was feeling was true, you know what I'm saying? That I was a son of a hustler, a gangster. I think that Sean had his own challenges. And I also think that the way that his growing up in a single parent household with a mom who had to keep it all together, you know, for him, I think that presents challenges and also, you know, positive things. I think the fact that he was able to live in Mount Vernon and go to Catholic school, like, he seemed to be kind of exposed to a lot of different things that sometimes are not available to a lot of kids, you know, that grow up with a single mom or a single parent.

13:38I think that all of those kind of textures and all of those worlds kind of created a space for him to be able to know how to move through so many different spaces and how to kind of become a chameleon, if you will. And I think that that was one major takeaway that I realized about him.

13:56Rebecca Lavoie:Yeah, well, not every intern climbs the ladder to be vice president, right? What was it about Sean Combs that allowed him to achieve that? What do you think, Alex? Well, only Sean Combs could really answer that question. But from where I sit, I think that what we wanted to put forward in the story and in the documentary was that it was really less about like what his wiring was and just really recognizing kind of what a unicorn he was, you know, to be so young and to be such a hustler and to have that talent of being very smooth with bosses, getting your way, you know, a lot of the time being able to kind of be the eye of the storm.

14:34or the center of, you know, a lot of different scenes. But I think what really came through for him in those years was his ability to market himself, you know, always, and to kind of be the center of attention and to really brand himself before, like at 19 years old, 18 years old in the party circuit, you know, that this is a puffy party. And that's a talent.

15:05Rebecca Lavoie:There were early signs of Sean Combs' problematic behavior. Joy Dickerson Neal alleges Combs assaulted her in 1991. In your interview with her, she read from a 1992 typewritten letter by her mother. That must have been a very emotional moment talking to her about that. Yeah, extremely. I think that when covering allegations like this, anytime that there's something that is tangible like that, it just kind of goes from just exchanging words with somebody and then having like a visceral connection to what might have taken place or what took place. I think for Joy, I think for her, there were a lot of emotions, not only with the fact that that letter was written, but her mother is no longer with her.

15:52And I think that my perspective was that it really just took her back to that time and place. Dear Mr. and Mrs. Combs, I'm writing you to inform you of something that your son did to my daughter. One weekend while visiting my daughter, I awoke to her screaming in the middle of the night. She told me that she was dreaming about Puffy. And I think that when we think about our parents as our protectors, to think of, you know, I think she thought of her mother as trying to protect her, but not really being able to. And I think that all of that is just, you know, it's a load, you know, and a lot of different emotions ran through her.

16:37Rebecca Lavoie:I was surprised at how much material in the series I had never seen or heard before. You got a hold of tape of LAPD detective Greg Kading talking to Keefe D. Had this been hidden in plain sight before? How did you get a hold of it? You know, hidden in plain sight is kind of an interesting way to describe that footage. I think that we were the first to get the volume of tapes and recordings. Keefe, today what we're going to do, we're just going to go over with a fine tooth comb, the Las Vegas incident. We do have to emphasize to you, it's determined that some of these details are incorrect and everything's off the table.

17:16I think that we live in a world, thanks to social media, where explosive things happen, crazy things happen in the news, and especially with the intersection of pop culture and crimes. People just get like little dashes of fragments of the story, you know, and so there's a big story to share here. But I think that unless you really kind of make a body of work where people can sit down and provide the context and the history and the storytelling for people to to get their attention to sit with you for an hour to explain, you know, a story from beginning to end, it's really hard for people to pay attention to.

17:53So a lot of those clips, you know, had been running around on the Internet, on YouTube. And I think that no one had really kind of put it together, coupled with the interviews that we had of people. You know, Greg Hating was conducting an investigation. But, you know, someone like Kirk Burroughs was actually living through this time period as it was actually happening. And I think when you have both of those things along with the footage and the clips, it just it kind of takes it has a life of its own.

18:20Rebecca Lavoie:50, you know better, I think, than most people, the tragedy of when art and violence intersect. Do you find that that experience leads to people changing for the better or for the worse? I think, well, it was for the better for me. But a lot of times, violence interacting with art, like the music and stuff, that happens, it's always been a part of the music business. The energy, like with Puff's success, there's no lack of intelligence. that you do see the usage of drugs and things that change. It appears your thought process or your decision-making process and doing different things later. But I don't know him to be someone who's not smart enough to figure out how to maneuver or to get himself into a better space.

19:05He never was that talented, just smart. And he hustled his way into a lot of things. Like he always, I know him to stand next to the fire to keep warm. He's standing next to the artist that actually has the talent They actually made the song, they mixed it hot, and it made him cool within culture. And so Big passed, and then he became the star of that.

19:25Rebecca Lavoie:Can you tell me how Cassie came to be involved with Sean Combs? Well, she was an artist. You know, she was working with one of Sean's producers named Ryan Leslie. And she was, for all intents and purposes, kind of on her own journey into becoming a pop sensation, a pop star. She had a team around her working on that goal. But Ryan introduced her to Sean and Sean took an interest, I think, very early on and decided that he was going to sort of take over her career and take over her ascension into entertainment. How consequential was that hotel hallway footage of Cassie, both in terms of the case and the public's perception of Combs?

20:12That tape was a big moment, you know, in this story. R &B singer Cassie has accused hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs of rape. In a bombshell lawsuit, Cassie alleges the Bad Boy Records music mogul throughout their 10-year relationship physically and sexually abused her. I think, again, going back to your question about Joy and reading the letter, I think any time you have allegations like this and this serious Cassie's civil suit coming out publicly, some of the details in that were so seemed fantastical, you know, because I think they were so out of the ordinary of like what people might have experienced in their own personal life.

20:53So I think when the tape dropped, it was a way to see with your own two eyes her claims of abuse and you were able to digest that. I think that it made people very uncomfortable. I think it forced people to kind of, this interesting schism happened with the general public where I think people started to feel so uncomfortable that they felt like they had to take a position about it. You know, oh, this is, this means everything is true, you know, burn it all down. Right. And then you had, you know, another group of people that I think were like, well, what was the reason for the beating? And it kind of prompted this like really fascinating conversation about did Sean have any reason to do that to her?

21:38And that was, you know, we were actively working on this when that tape came out. And that's when a light bulb went off for me about the film, that this isn't just about the story of Sean Combs or the story of Cassie or the story of any of these victims, nor his allegations or the trial. Like, ultimately, what this story kind of becomes is sort of a mirror to us as the public. And what are we saying about promoting or looking the other way or having to face and recognize like how we put our celebrities on such a high pedestal that it could be that shocking that something like that would happen?