The music industry was shocked last week when music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was the subject of a bombshell indictment charging him with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation of prostitution. But some people weren’t entirely surprised.
Rumors about Diddy’s alleged behavior have been circulating for years, with female celebrities making comments about him in interviews in the past. The problem was, few people were willing to listen.
In a 2004 profile of Kimora Lee Simmons, she recalled a time Combs threatened to hit her while she was pregnant. In 2022, former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day revealed on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that her forced departure from the girl group in 2008 was related to her refusal to do what Combs “expected” her to do in areas unrelated to music. Singer Jagger Wright has also stood his ground for years, accusing Combs of felony assault in various interviews. In one video interview, Wright said he was called a “liar” and accused of being jealous of Combs’ success.
It wasn’t until a video surfaced of Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura that people started to listen. Why?
Experts say gender and racial prejudice, as well as cognitive biases such as the “halo effect,” contribute to the denial of sexual assault allegations, leaving victims feeling shamed and disbelieved.
The “halo effect” protects celebrities from scrutiny
A cognitive bias called the “halo effect” can help protect the image of public figures who face allegations of sexual abuse, said Elizabeth L. Jeglick, a clinical psychologist and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York.
When we have a positive impression of someone like Combs — a Grammy Award-winning artist who has rubbed shoulders with Oprah and Obama, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and received an honorary doctorate from Howard University — people tend to “discount information that contradicts our perception of him,” especially when someone “of lower stature” comes forward, Jeglick said.
That may well have been what happened in 1999. Rapper Combs and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez were at a club when Combs and bodyguard Anthony Wolf Jones got into an argument with rapper Moses Shine Barrow, resulting in a shootout that injured three people. After a police chase, Combs, Lopez, Jones, and Barrow were all briefly arrested. In the ensuing jury trial, only Barrow was found guilty of first-degree assault for shooting and killing two passersby. One of the victims was Natania Ruben, who has always maintained that Diddy was one of the men he shot.
But sometimes it takes irrefutable evidence to change people’s perception of a celebrity, as happened when the video of Combs assaulting Ventura at a hotel was released.
“Then people start thinking, ‘Can he really behave like this?'” Gjerugić explains.
Diddy’s sex trafficking charges: What does this mean for him?
Black female victims ‘face an uphill battle’
Some of the women who say Combs abused them are black, which may have contributed to their skepticism. This dates back to the 19th century, when “it was actually written into the law” to downplay black women’s experiences of sexual violence in the US, said Chloe Grace Hart, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“In some southern states, only white women are legally recognized as rape victims,” Hart says. “Obviously, that’s no longer the case today, but remnants of that mindset remain, even if not necessarily on a conscious level.”
Hart’s recent research has found that Americans are less likely to believe black women’s accounts of sexual harassment than white women’s accounts.
“This suggests that when it comes to sexual violence, black women victims face an especially tough battle to be believed,” she says.
Renée Carr, a clinical psychologist and expert on human thought, said black and Latina women are often portrayed as over-sexualized, which is a big problem when it comes to abuse allegations.
“When people see someone who claims to have been sexually assaulted or abused, they assume that they probably really wanted it, because there’s an unconscious stereotype in our minds that that person is already highly sexual anyway,” she says.
“Men still hold a lot of power,” but there is strength in numbers
“We still live in a predominantly patriarchal society, and men still hold a lot of power,” Dziergic says, “so when women come forward with accusations, it’s much easier to smear them and paint them as emotional or crazy.”
Black women are also stereotyped as being “angry,” which can exacerbate the neglect and gaslighting of their lived experiences.
But when multiple women come forward with their stories of abuse, the public becomes more receptive to these stories and more willing to listen. Maybe one day, women’s stories will be believed even without overwhelming evidence, but we’re not there yet.
“We’ve seen change with the #MeToo movement,” Gjerugić said, “but we still have a long way to go.”
