Sean Combs Says His Domestic Abuse ‘Is a Heavy Burden’ on Him
Before being sentenced, music mogul Sean Combs asked for leniency from the court, explaining that his domestic abuse “is a heavy burden I will always have to carry.” The judge responded by adding a four-year prison sentence to his burden.
***
In breaking sad sausage news, yesterday music producer Sean Combs, aka Puff Daddy, aka Diddy, was sentenced to four years in prison for trafficking women across state lines for abusive, coercive, drug-fueled orgies. But you know who this has been the hardest on? If you guessed Sean Combs you guessed right.
The saddest of sausages
“I beg your honor for mercy,” he said.
He called his conduct “disgusting, shameful and sick,” referring to assaults of Ms. Ventura and Jane, his former girlfriends who took part in drug-fueled sex marathons with male escorts.
His mother and his faith had taught him better, Mr. Combs said.
“My domestic violence,” he said, “will always be a heavy burden that I will have to forever carry.”
Funny that. Because you literally denied everything, including ever hitting Cassie Ventura and paid her a settlement to make it go away, but then CNN got ahold of security footage of you thug kicking her in a hotel hallway, and you suddenly found your sorry.
But it’s good to know that domestic violence is a burden you and you alone forever carry.
This has been hard on Sean, no harder really.
He also spoke of the toll of his misdeeds.
“Because of my decisions, I lost my freedom,” Mr. Combs said. “I lost the opportunity to effectively raise my children and be there for my mother.”
“I lost all my businesses,” he added. “I lost my career. I totally destroyed my reputation.”
“Your honor, I know that the prosecution wants you to make an example of me,” Mr. Combs said. “I just want you to think about making an example of what a person can do if they get another chance.”
Nah. I think we’d prefer an example of accountability, which seems to be in short supply these days.
Also, dude, you aren’t an “example.” These aren’t theoretical crimes. You got your rocks off drugging and sexually degrading women.
Which makes me wonder why so many powerful men, when they get power, choose to exercise it with sexual abuse.
Haven’t we heard your sorry before?
The Universal Bullshit Translator just decoded a Sean Combs sad sausage non-apology apology last year.
But in advance of the sentencing, with the help of his lawyers, and maybe ChatGPT Combs came up with some more faux accountability that quickly pivots back to his suffering.
The New York Times reports
Sean Combs made a plea for leniency in a letter to a federal judge on Thursday ahead of his sentencing on prostitution-related charges, writing that he had been “humbled” by the criminal case against him and would “never commit a crime again.”
“This has been the hardest two years of my life, and I have no one to blame for my current reality and situation but myself,” Mr. Combs wrote in the letter, which his lawyers submitted on the eve of his sentencing hearing.
At the conclusion of an eight-week trial this summer, Mr. Combs was acquitted of charges that he sex trafficked two former girlfriends and ran a racketeering conspiracy. But he was convicted of transportation to engage in prostitution, charges related to drug-fueled sex marathons involving his girlfriends and hired male escorts, which were known as “freak-offs” or “hotel nights.”
“In my life, I have made many mistakes, but I am no longer running from them,” he wrote. “I am so sorry for the hurt that I caused, but I understand that the mere words ‘I’m sorry’ will never be good enough as these words alone cannot erase the pain from the past.”
So many mistakes! Oops, who among us hasn’t ordered a crate of baby oil for our rapey set pieces?
The judge didn’t buy it.
Judge Arun Subramanian gave Sean Combs four years in prison. He explained the sentence was required:
“to send a message to abusers and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability.”
Judge Arun Subramanian
How did Sean take it?
At his sentencing hearing on Friday, where a judge sentenced Mr. Combs to more than four years in prison, the music mogul expressed how he felt about that view after more than a year in detention. His voice shook as he stood at the defense counsel’s table.
“I’m not this larger-than-life person,” he said. “I’m just a human being.”
In jail. Which I hope makes your victims’ burden a little lighter.
Comb’s attack on his girlfriend or wife in the hotel is one of the most horrific videos I’ve ever seen. He tosses her around like a rag doll and beats her like her wants her dead. I think it is only luck and the grace of God she wasn’t killed. That is his true self, who he is when he thinks no one is watching. A monster. Complete disregard for human life. I think 4 years is not enough.
And here is the really scary part: I think most of us Chumps are held in the same regard by our FW’s. This is also who our partners are when they no one is watching. Even if they never behave violently, they don’t see us as human beings. Coming to terms with the fact that not only were we (and our chiildren) not loved, but not even regarded as human beings…that fact I may never get over.
Yes! It’s so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t watched their partner have a transformation into a state of pure hatred. It’s like something out of a horror movie.
I recall one of the hardest logistical challenges after d-day was what to do with my ex’s (illegal, unregistered) handgun that she left in our apartment. I didn’t want it, but I didn’t want her to have it, because I didn’t trust her not to do anything rash. To me, this was a normal problem, like dividing up furniture. I remember telling a friend and she was absolutely horrified! She had to knock some sense into me and say no, this isn’t normal, your partner shouldn’t have such an intense hatred for you that violence is on the table.
Oh yeah, the slow descent into hell effect means that after a certain period of time you don’t even realize the depth at which you are existing. I only knew it by the shock on my therapist’s face at certain things I disclosed and the fact that when I told my story in betrayal trauma class the other women would cry. The unimaginable had become routine for me.
You survived it; I feel you are luckyseven. Both of us lucky to survive it.
That’s very kind, thank you :’)
This is so true. I remember very clearly when my exFW had a realization that I was actually a person. We were arguing about something trivial and I said “I don’t need to know your opinion. I have my own.” and he actually saw me as a person, not a possession of his, just for a second. I saw it on his face. In that fleeting moment he realized that I was actually a person with my own thoughts and ideas. We had been together for 30 years before he had that lightbulb moment.
You are absolutely right.
So true! We are just pawns.
And those women were just pawns to Combs to satisfy his desires. Just dolls of flesh. Property.
Funny how they always insist that “they’re a real, flawed human being” means they shouldn’t have to face real consequences.
After committing acts of deceit and degradation to the people who loved them the most.
My favorite Terry Pratchett quote is “Evil begins when you treat other people like things”.
That is exactly what he did to these women. He used them as props for his own titillation. Same with many cheaters, chumps are set pieces and appliances for their own happiness and convenience. Not fully realized human beings in their own right who freely partner with them. But objects who can be exchanged for a newer better model, or left at home like a Roomba dutifully the floor while they play with a new toy. The chump appliance’s feelings and needs are just an inconvenience, an obstacle to soothe so the cheater can keep on going with minimal disruption.
Now that Sean’s chickens are coming home to roost, he still simply cannot fathom that he’s going to jail. He’s the “Real person” after all, not them. Even his apology is about his suffering and his career. Not theirs, or how for the rest of their lives when their names are googled. It’ll be footage of their trauma that he inflicted.
Quite possibly the conditions in whatever prison he goes to will be better than the jail he’s been in. I hope he goes to a maximum security institution.
The only people who “play” victims are perpetrators. From everything I’ve seen and heard, it seems no one on the planet cries more or more tragically than garden variety domestic batterers for instance. They’re seriously the weepiest, wailiest men on the face of the earth. This is why I thought the one-cry-therapy-and-all-fixed scene in Good Will Hunting after the Will character criminally assaults his girlfriend (grabs her violently while screaming, throws her into a door and punches the door behind her head for good measure) made the film dangerously misleading.
I also thought it was dangerously misrepresentative of good therapy and good therapists since Robin Williams’ therapist character doesn’t even pry into whether Will might be abusive to women despite carrying every single earmark of a domestic batterer. Why not? Because that would cause tOxIc sHaMe? Ugh.
No surprise that Ben Affleck was the one who began turning the story from Damon’s original silly thriller into an exploration of attachment disorder due to childhood trauma. It’s close to his own story, plus he probably heard many other dramatic narratives and armchair psychological theories when his mother began taking him to Al-Anon at age eleven to deal with his father’s raging addiction. In any case, a lot of domestic abusers know their abusiveness is a reenactment of from childhood abuse from online psychobabble sites or fleeting attempts to get therapy after yet another partner runs screaming. But they’ll always stop exploring their own psyches upon identifying the sad sausage/tragic backstory alibi because DV isn’t about losing control but about taking it.
It’s still important to understand how batterers are created for all sorts of reasons such as warning cues for prospective victims (such as men who cry too much) and also why it’s important to get children away from these types before the generational cycle repeats. But those tragic backstories should never be viewed as an alibi or a reason to spare abusers consequences.
Yeah, that’s why I hated that movie. I didn’t feel anything but contempt and disgust for the “hero” of it and I thought the therapist was a fool.
I wish I’d been more secure in my perceptions of the film when I saw it but, aside from my parents who hated the movie, only one other friend felt the same way and we felt outnumbered and embattled, including from other women. At the time, a lot of people tended to view our criticism of the film as “misandrist/man-hating.”
In retrospect, I can see that what I found unsettling about the film is that the writing is more clever than average (nice Noam Chomsky reference). But this is just used to bait the hook with some promising themes like the idea that reactive attachment disorder underlies a lot intimacy issues or that gifted kids are often social outliers (Little Man Tate does this much better) but then just uses these as alibis for abuse and entitlement.
It’s always about how hard it is for them. It’s truly mind boggling.
💯
I personally don’t consider a four-year sentence “real accountability” for what Combs did.
Nor do I, but here we are.At least he’s getting some consequences. He could have walked (time served) and apparently expected to; he scheduled speaking engagements for next week.(!) That is, if what I read is correct.
He should have gotten life in prison just for what he did to the woman in the hotel hallway alone.
Agreed, if I could edit my first post I’d definitely change “real” to “any”. It’s sad that the fact that he might do more jail time at all is surprising when the charge is domestic violence. Most of them get away with it.
The Brock Turner’s of the world are still going free.
Combs getting four years is a pathetically short sentence but actually impressive considering how Judge Subramanian stacked the deck in Combs’ favor by disallowing domestic violence expert Dawn Hughes, prosecutors or victims to use the words “coercive control” despite the fact Combs’ behavior towards partners and assistants was the dictionary definition of CC and fits the criminal definition of same in places where it’s outlawed.
Let’s hope the Convicted Felon doesn’t pardon him! Just the kind of thing he’d do. These were federal charges, so he could.
The only reason he might not is because Combs is black.
You beat me to it. There are some people that are happy to see a rich black man fall.
Don’t get me wrong. This one deserves it tenfold.
He let Mel Gibson have guns again after a DV conviction so it’s possible.
To me, her forced smile in the last video sequence speaks volumes, too. As if she knew her only job was doing image management for him, or else.
He reportedly was frantic to avoid any jail time, because already while behind bars he has felt so unsafe that he never sleeps. Obviously it would be cruel to do something to another human that makes them feel unsafe …..
Almost like being made to sleep next to someone who could turn violent if the wrong mood hits is traumatic or something… Can’t imagine anyone else who would know what that’s like. /s
In my state, there’s a surcharge on traffic violations including DUIs and speeding, and the collected fees fund an NGO that serves people with brain injuries.
Imagine if penalties could also be assessed on rapists, etc., to fund domestic violence support services and shelters. And if the penalties were commensurate with income and/or assets, convicting someone like Combs could make the world a much better place.
If combs had made a donation before he was sentenced, it would have looked like he was trying to buy a lighter sentence. Nothing’s stopping him now from making substantial contributions. except his own selfishness and greed.
This is a great idea. I just looked it up and several states including mine have fees paid by offenders to go directly to either victims or recovery programs.
He’s lucky he wasn’t convicted on all counts and didn’t receive a lifetime sentence. And IMHO, 50 months isn’t much for what he did. He’s getting off lightly.
And, there isn’t parole in the federal prison system. But there is something called “good time” which means that if you obey the rules and keep your nose clean, you get 54 days a year off your sentence. If he gets that, it works out to about 7 months off his sentence. And he’s served 1 year in jail already. So, he can expect to be released in mid 2028. Not long really
I read an article somewhere that said people have quit positions at his companies and that some companies have pulled out of deals with him. I hope he’ll be shunned when he is released. If these are the only consequences he’ll have, well, at least he’s getting SOME consequences.
So he got held accountable at long last—some justice, but probably not enough in the scheme of things. “Human beings” have to pay the price, ya know. Of course, he acted all sorry in front of the judge. His life and livelihood are ruined for a time if not longer.
Their victims are never the same if they survive. I know a gal locally who was trafficed fifteen years ago. Better in some ways, not in others. And another who was gang raped for days after being abducted in her 20s overseas. Same. Better but still working through that decades later.
Women are just objects to these types. When I got that in my own case, I knew the marriage had to end. I truly meant very, very little to him.
How horrible. I had a long distance friend who was also abducted and gang raped for days. She got Hep C from it. She turned to religion to deal with the trauma and after that she moved, changed her phone number, I never heard from her again and she didn’t answer my emails. I got the feeling it was because I’m a non-believer and didn’t feel comfortable talking about her new religious life to me. This was more than twenty years ago but I still think of her and wonder if she’s okay. Yes, women are not human beings to men such as this nor are we human beings to our ex FWs.
I do hope that your friend is doing reasonably well.
I used to have these discussions in my old church where some believed “God can fix anything!” Certain people there believed that I didn’t give my ex enough time and energy because “God can fix anything!” And even years later, some would shame me for not speaking well of him and not wanting to be friends with him. For that and other reasons, I left for a church that is more balanced in reality.
I believe now that many of us remain damaged in some ways even if very functional. If you will, we are a jar of clay with a few cracks that have been repaired to some extent. And that’s perfectly OK. I’ll never be the naive bride I was decades ago. In some ways, I’m more jaded now, but I keep a lot of that to myself. And that’s fine too.
The absolute brilliance of LAGAL and pointing out the cycle of sad sausage, charm, rage, and the ongoing cycle of abuse during the whole encounter…this blue print…we have it now. But if a camera had been installed in my home shared by cheater #1 or #2 with the recording of actions and words..there could have been a judgement made then too. In degree, this creep was horrific, but us chumps should remember what we accepted as necessary abuse to stay with our cheater
Only a matter of degrees.
“Which makes me wonder why so many powerful men, when they get power, choose to exercise it with sexual abuse.”
It’s because the men who want power and seek power tend to be nasty, sexually deviant freaks. Nice people don’t usually want power.
I think that chumps, as a general rule, aren’t power seekers. We don’t want to have control over the lives of others. Because we aren’t ruthless, power hungry egotists, we got played by ruthless, power hungry egotists. However, because we have banded together here to share our knowledge, now we know how to spot them, even when they wear a mask. We have stared into the abyss that passes for the soul of scummy people and we didn’t get destroyed by it. We got stronger. So hurray for us and fuck you, Diddly.
This is so true, but I think it is even worse. Oftentimes, these guys are going to mentor and promote other guys who are just like them. This is why they tend to show up in clusters, and why it seems so difficult for any decent people who may seek power to get in.
Or they are promoting certain women as a reward for sexual favors. Same toxic “brand” of patriarchy.
This stood out to me as well. Every time I have the discussion about why we don’t have better choices to lead our country, I say, “Well do you want the job?” Of course not, neither do I. I just want a decent life for my family.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, asshole!
Dude got 4 years out of the 17 he was supposed to get (at least if my local news outlet is to be believed-I am more and more of the opinion that NetKrash has actually happened but I digress.) Sounds pretty lenient to me. He probably only got off that light because he could afford high-test counsel. In the immortal words of fellow-fuckwit Chris Rock(I am paraphrasing-coffee hasn’t kicked in yet), “The only reason OJ got off is because he’s famous. If he didn’t have no Heismans, he’d be ‘Orenthal the Bus Driving Murderer.'”
I also read somewhere that he feels that he shouldn’t be held accountable for any of that because he has been “reborn.” I read that before this “asking for mercy” nonsense.
Criminal. Thinking. Errors.
Well, yes, you HAVE done something wrong. You SHOULD feel guilty. You should feel guilty for having traumatized people, horrifically physically abused a lover, and knowingly and willfully committed several felonies (and heaven only knows what he’s been complicit in otherwise.)
Losing work, losing business opportunities, not being there for your kids, not being there for your mother, having to carry guilt? Those are called natural consequences. Those happen whether or not you “have a debt to society.” You are not supposed to get “less jail time” because your decisions ended up having other ramifications-hell, if anything that’s already figured in to the penal code. Being in constant danger in jail, someone trying to stab you, being put in a den of monsters with no way out but time or in a bag? Were you thinking about that when you were dragging somebody by their hair ON CAMERA? No. No you weren’t.
Next time you’re feeling aggressive? Lock in on the feeling of being put in an 8×8 box. That is what you are doing actually feels like.
And in the immortal words of one of my mentors, “You may have paid your debt to society, but you still have to pay it to me!”
Our collective fuckwits have lost all of us and similar. Mssr. Combs is right on one count-he is a human being. And human beings are accountable for their actions.
He got off light. And given how our society tends to handwave these things I very much doubt that he has “lost his businesses.” People will be lining up to work for and with “Diddy” after he gets out of jail. He’ll release an album about his experience, a book deal, he’ll be on Oprah all wrapped around his “changed man” persona. Watch. This is all presuming that some Orange Flavored Idiot doesn’t pardon him.
Dollars to donuts he will blame his victims for what he did to them and never forgive them. How dare that girl smash her face against his fist so aggressively? How dare she endanger his reputation by attempting to escape to an area with a camera? What kind of a dirty slut has the audacity to bleed on his expensive clothes?
They are incapable of remorse.
A terribly appropriate exhibit to support Tracy’s brilliant observation of the narc sociopath’s enduring love of the Self Pity channel