Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing the music. While the “Bad Boy For Life” rapper is nominated for his first Grammy in two decades—the last time he competed was for 2004's “Shake Ya Tailfeather” featuring Nelly and Murphy Lee—he won’t be attending the February 4th ceremony as he faces multiple accusations of sexual assault from his ex-partner Cassie and a slew of other anonymous women, per The Hollywood Reporter. Diddy has denied all of these claims.
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In November, recording artist Cassie (real name Casandra Ventura) accused her ex of an incredibly disturbing, years-long pattern of abuse from 2006 through 2018, when an alleged rape ended their relationship. While the pair settled one day after the suit was filed, Combs was quickly hit with three more suits from anonymous women, one of whom alleged that she was given “copious amounts of drugs and alcohol,” raped, and trafficked across state lines by the rapper when she was just 17 years old. Though the alleged incidents happened years ago, Cassie’s and two of the other suits were filed before the expiration of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which extended the statute of limitations for filing claims of rape and sexual assault. The fourth suit was filed under the similar Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act.
Just days before all of this came out, Diddy’s The Love Album: Off The Grid was nominated in the “Best Progressive R&B Album” category against acts like SZA, Janelle Monáe, Terrace Martin and James Fauntleroy, and 6lack. On January 11, before Diddy’s reps announced he would not be in attendance, the Recording Academy released a statement saying they were “taking this matter very seriously and [were] in the process of evaluating it with the time and care that it deserves” (via THR). Everyone who is nominated for a Grammy is invited to the ceremony, so disinviting Diddy (even though it sounds like his team took care of it for them) would have been a major statement from the Academy. As of this writing, Diddy’s album is still nominated, even though he won’t be there to see whether it wins or loses.