A judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Sean Combs over a Peacock documentary that he said “shamelessly” advanced conspiracy theories that defamed him.
Mr. Combs filed the suit against the streaming service and its owner, NBCUniversal, last year, as he was defending himself against accusations of sexual misconduct in criminal and civil court. He has vehemently denied sexually abusing anyone.
The lawsuit sought at least $100 million in damages and took issue with various claims made by interview subjects in the documentary, titled “Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy.” Those included speculation about the death of Mr. Combs’s longtime romantic partner and unsubstantiated claims about footage of sexual abuse involving minors and celebrities.
In her order, filed on Monday, Judge Phaedra F. Perry-Bond of New York Supreme Court wrote that it was difficult to blame the documentary for Mr. Combs’s reputational problems, considering his swirl of legal troubles and the release of footage of him beating a former girlfriend.
“It is inconceivable,” the judge wrote, “as to how the documentary created additional damage to plaintiff’s reputation, which was already tarnished by the numerous lawsuits, domestic violence video, press coverage and a criminal indictment.”
Last summer, a jury convicted Mr. Combs of transporting individuals for the purposes of prostitution, but acquitted him of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges. He is currently serving a sentence of more than four years in a New Jersey federal prison while his lawyers appeal his conviction and fight dozens of cases accusing him of sexual misconduct that are still working their way through the civil court system.
Mr. Combs took particular issue with an assertion in the documentary from one of its interview subjects that Kim Porter, Mr. Combs’s longtime girlfriend with whom he had three children, had been murdered. She died in 2018 at 47 years old. His lawsuit called the speculation “deeply distressing, offensive, reckless and malicious.”
But the judge found that the documentary had included information casting doubt on the murder claim, including when it showed an image of Ms. Porter’s autopsy report, which says she died of lobar pneumonia and separately noted that the local police did not suspect foul play.
Lawyers for NBCUniversal defended the documentary in court, saying in their filings that it presented allegations levied against Mr. Combs along with a range of perspectives, including those of the music mogul’s own representatives.
The judge agreed, writing in her order that the documentary demonstrated a “nuanced” approach that disclosed the biases of interview subjects and included responses to the core allegations.
Mr. Combs has another defamation suit that remains ongoing, against a man who claimed in television interviews to be in possession of videos that showed the music mogul in sexual encounters with celebrities, including assaults of people that the man said appeared to be minors. The footage, which Mr. Combs’s lawyers have said does not exist, never surfaced.
Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times.
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