A choose says Sean “Diddy” Combs can preserve pursuing defamation claims over a NewsNation broadcast that instructed he laced child oil with medicine to incapacitate alleged sexual assault victims.
A Friday (Sept. 4) courtroom ruling, first obtained and reported by Billboard, denies motions by each NewsNation and lawyer Ariel Mitchell to outright dismiss Combs’ $100 million slander lawsuit. A 3rd defendant within the case, Courtney Burgess, has not responded to the claims and is dealing with the prospect of default judgment.
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Mitchell was the lawyer for Burgess, who claims to know the Unhealthy Boy Information founder and was a witness earlier than the grand jury that charged Combs in 2024 over his intercourse events referred to as “freak-offs.” The indictment claimed Combs saved “greater than 1,000 bottles of child oil” in his residence for these occasions — a headline-grabbing allegation that shortly turned synonymous with the case.
Burgess and Mitchell appeared on NewsNation for a number of interviews following Combs’ arrest. In a single broadcast, Mitchell stated she had finished “analysis” indicating that child oil might be blended with medicine earlier than being doused on a sexual assault sufferer, thereby “decreasing her defenses.” Combs alleges in his lawsuit that that is scientifically baseless, and it was defamatory for Mitchell and NewsNation to unfold such lies.
Decide John P. Cronan stated in Friday’s order that there’s enough foundation for Combs to allege defamation based mostly on this assertion. “Within the view of the Courtroom,” wrote the choose, “it’s believable that anybody who heard such a declare would on the very least entertain severe doubts as to its accuracy.”
The choose dominated that Combs may preserve suing Mitchell for saying in the course of the NewsNation interviews that Burgess had entry to video recordings of Combs engaged in sexual assault, which Combs unequivocally denies. Nevertheless, the choose stated NewsNation itself can’t be held chargeable for these statements, because the cable information channel offered all the correct context for its viewers.
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“NewsNation introduced Burgess’s claims as precisely what they had been: allegations,” wrote Decide Cronan. “The host reminded viewers that Combs ‘has not been convicted of any crimes’ and that ‘every thing towards him is an allegation till it’s confirmed in a courtroom of regulation.’”
Reps for Combs, NewsNation and Mitchell didn’t instantly return requests for touch upon Friday’s ruling.
The choice isn’t a last willpower on the deserves of any claims, however relatively a procedural step that enables Combs to maneuver ahead with acquiring proof from Mitchell and NewsNation via the invention course of. The subsequent section can be a trial, until a settlement is reached to resolve the case.
That is additional than Combs received in his different main defamation lawsuit towards a media community, NBCUniversal; in April, a choose threw out his claims over the 2025 Peacock documentary The Making of a Unhealthy Boy after figuring out that it complied with journalistic requirements. Combs is interesting that ruling.
Combs is presently serving jail time for unlawful prostitution, although he was acquitted at trial of extra severe prices that sought to border his “freak-off” events because the outcomes of a racketeering and sex-trafficking enterprise. He’s presently scheduled to be launched in early 2028.
