Diddy's sex-trafficking acquittal marks death of #metoo

National Post

3 days ago

There is little question that Diddy — the mono-monikered rapper and producer whose trial for sex crimes concluded in New York yesterday — is a violent and despicable man. One look, which is all any decent person can stomach, at the 2016 video of him assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and Diddy's innate odiousness becomes impossible to deny.
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But the trial of Sean 'Diddy' Combs wasn't merely about determining whether the man was distasteful or deplorable — but whether he had broken the law. And which laws, exactly? A jury found him guilty on two lesser charges related to prostitution, but failed to convict him on the far more serious allegations of sex trafficking which could have sent Combs to prison for life. Instead, say sentencing experts, he will probably serve just a handful of years behind bars — possibly even less — most likely at some sort of minimum-security facility, much like convicted securities felon Martha Stewart more than two decades ago.
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Of course, Diddy is no Martha Stewart, the goddess of expertly curated elevated living who has managed to remain relevant for nearly half a century through shrewd business moves, cleverly-calculated reinvention and sheer hard work.
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Diddy, too, has been a master of reinvention, literally renaming himself — from Sean to Puffy to P. Diddy and finally just Diddy — as he aged out of conventional pop culture coolness. But this is where the similarities to Stewart end. As his trial so luridly detailed, every stage of Diddy's public persona masked a parallel existence laden with the most extreme intersections of sex, drugs, money and often violence. Fueled by power and wealth — and the impunity both afford without measure — Diddy raped and beat, and bought libidinous satisfaction with craven disregard for compassion or consequence.
But again, we know all this — we've known it for years. After all, Diddy's crime-adjacent rap sheet is decades long; remember the infamous New York City nightclub shooting during his Jennifer Lopez-period back in 1999. Lopez, then equally shrewd and famous, summarily dropped Diddy after the gun shots quieted — one of the few lucky enough to escape his orbit.
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But as Diddy's acquittal of the most severe charge illustrates, a lack of luck isn't necessarily criminal. Particularly when so much of Diddy's deviousness was known for so long — and by so many. The botched — or at least bungled — trial of Diddy confirms yet again that you can't litigate morality and good behavior. Or in this case, a clear lack of both.
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This was essentially what the #metoo movement tried to accomplish — a very public reckoning of often very private misdeeds. And as we saw this week in a Manhattan courtroom, yet again such efforts have failed. True, Harvey Weinstein — #metoo's most-infamous predator — remains behind bars, as he should, for life. But nearly 20 years after it first entered the public consciousness, the Diddy trial could mark the end of #metoo, or at least its ability to manifest in the courtroom.
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So much of the Diddy trial focused on the performer's distinct sexual depravity — most notably those lotion-filled 'freak-offs' described in nauseating ad nauseam. But this was a case equally defined by a pathological consumption of drugs. Indeed, as the proceedings revealed, Diddy had a constant supply of narcotics on hand: marijuana, ecstasy, Klonopin — which he fed to girlfriends like Cassie and their revolving door of hired and acquired paramours.