‘Fall of Diddy’ Directors on Getting People to Speak in Doc: “The Fear Has Been Incredibly Palpable”

‘Fall of Diddy’ Directors on Getting People to Speak in Doc: “The Fear Has Been Incredibly Palpable”

The hip hop world has long used artist beefs or feuds, often with threats of violence, as public spectacle for promotional and financial gain.

So there’s a cruel irony with Investigation Discovery’s The Fall of Diddy docuseries revealing so many people in the rap world and in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ orbit over the years who lived in fear and didn’t dare diss or cross the music and fashion mogul to avoid threats of retribution.  

“I am absolutely nervous about sharing what I’ve seen him do to another human being. He’s powerful. And he’s scary,” said an unnamed young woman in the ID four-parter whose identity is protected, as she was a classmate of Combs at Howard University in 1988 and described an alleged beating of his girlfriend with a belt outside her dormitory.

The young woman in the series recounts a brutal attack by Combs that allegedly took place over 35 years before Combs, in September 2024, was arrested and locked up in a Brooklyn federal jail where he is currently awaiting trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.

Maxine Productions’ Emma Schwartz, a co-director on The Fall of Diddy, recalls an uphill climb to find people from Combs’ inner circle and survivors to participate when they mostly emerged from a world once dominated by the self-styled king of hip hop.

“I do think the fear has been incredibly palpable for so many people — even those who came forward and those who came close to and are not yet ready — in a very, very tangible way and, at least from my experience, that I have not felt as acutely before,” Schwartz told The Hollywood Reporter.

For fellow co-director Yoruba Richen of Emmy-nominated Maxine Productions, there was no capturing Combs’ downfall without first portraying his dramatic ascent and sway over the entertainment world that fed into the perception of power and control he had over people around him.

“You can’t talk about who this man, who he affected and the allegations, without talking about his rise, because he was singular in terms of his influence,” Richen argued, not least by bringing hip hop into pop culture’s mainstream in the 1990s.   

ID as a true crime network found earlier success mining the darker side of pop culture with last year’s bombshell Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, also from Maxine Productions. The Fall of Diddy echoes earlier #MeToo-era TV treatments of entertainment industry titans whose abuse of seeming indomitable power left a trail of emotional, physical and career devastation before their own downfalls.

Schwartz adds, “The power that people perceive [Combs] to hold over them has to do with his rise and his reach, and all of the empire that he built over the decades. And one of the things that stood out to me, that made his story so different from so many other stories, where we hear all kinds of allegations, is that many people today are trying to grapple with what his legacy is.”

For that reason, ID president Jason Sarlanis told THR that The Fall of Diddy aimed for a full picture of Combs, which includes the darkness that lay beneath his creative genius and a seemingly obsessive need to control and abuse people in his orbit, including employees.

“That did give him great influence over the culture, and with that came great power. And the documentary also gives an opportunity for people who allege that they were victims of that power to speak back to that power, and that duality is is what we’re trying to achieve with this documentary,” Sarlanis said.

The Fall of Diddy portrays Combs’ decades-long impact on music and popular culture, from his early days as a talented creative in the hip hop world to his 2024 arrest, while also tackling claims of sexual assault, abusive behavior and violence that has also have become part of the rap world star’s legacy.

To get people to speak up, often for the first time, the researchers at Maxine Productions — led by Schwartz, Richen and executive producer Mary Robertson, and the partnering team at Rolling Stone Films — had to surmount the fear and anxiety that women especially felt around Combs and his impact on their lives, whether personally or professionally.  

That was before the floodgates began to open and still-fearful people came forward more assuredly after singer and ex-girlfriend Casandra Ventura brought her federal lawsuit against the music mogul in November 2023, and in which she accused him of rape and physical abuse during their relationship.

By then, Maxine Productions was well on its way with the project, allowing ID to unveil plans for the docuseries in mid-September 2024 and only one day after Combs was arrested on sex trafficking and racketeering charges and subsequently denied bail.

But even as he sits behind bars awaiting an upcoming trial, a sense of dread still hangs in the air over fears that a defiant and wealthy Combs will eventually walk free.

“While Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, aka P Diddy, may be sitting behind bars in New York at the moment, I think that many who believe he is yet to be held accountable and would like to see him held accountable wonder whether or not that day will come to pass. And whether or not it does come to pass in the judicial system will influence the sense of their own safety,” exec producer Robertson explained.   

A rep for Combs told The Hollywood Reporter that many of the doc’s allegations were left unchecked. Here is the statement in full: “These documentaries are rushing to cash in on the media circus surrounding Mr. Combs. The producers failed to provide sufficient time or details for his representatives to address unsubstantiated claims, many from unidentified participants whose allegations lack context. By withholding this information, they made it impossible for Mr. Combs to present facts to counter these fabricated accusations. This production is clearly intended to present a one-sided and prejudicial narrative. As we’ve said before, Mr. Combs cannot respond to every publicity stunt or facially ridiculous claim. He has full confidence in the facts and the judicial process, where the truth will prevail: the accusations against him are pure fiction.”

Combs’ trial is set to start on May 5, 2025. If found guilty on all charges, he faces a potential life sentence in prison.

The Fall of Diddy, produced for ID by Maxine Productions and The Intellectual Property Corporation, both part of Sony Pictures Television, in partnership with Rolling Stone Films, airs on Jan. 27 and 28 at 9 p.m. on Investigation Discovery before streaming on Max.