By Ben Sisario
The arrest of Sean Combs last week, on charges including sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, represents a stunning reversal of fortune for the hip-hop impresario, who as recently as a year ago was feted as an industry visionary before a sudden series of sexual assault accusations.
The indictment against Combs accuses him of running a criminal enterprise centered on abusing women, and of using bribery, arson, kidnapping and threats of violence to intimidate and silence victims. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
But Combs’ arrest has also stirred the hopes of activists and survivors of sexual violence that his case may finally lead to lasting change in the music industry. Though long seen as inhospitable to women, the business has largely avoided the scrutiny and accountability that swept Hollywood, politics and much of the media world at the peak of the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s.
There is no single explanation for why music dodged a similar reckoning. Some point to the industry’s decentralized power structure, its pervasive party culture and a history of deference to artists and top executives.
“Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, the looseness with sexuality — that is baked into the culture of the music industry,” said Caroline Heldman, a professor at Occidental College and a longtime activist. “Unfortunately, that means that rape culture is baked into it, because there aren’t mechanisms of accountability.”
The charges against Combs are the music world’s most high-profile criminal prosecution on sexual misconduct charges since R. Kelly, the R&B star who was trailed by allegations of abuse for decades, was sentenced in 2022 and 2023 to more than 30 years in prison for child sex crimes, sex trafficking and racketeering.
Shaunna Thomas, the executive director of UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy group, pointed to the Combs case as a potential turning point and noted the string of lawsuits filed recently when states and cities temporarily lifted statutes of limitations on accusations of sexual assault. In New York and California, sexual assault cases have been filed against stars like Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Jermaine Jackson and producer L.A. Reid.
“It has created an opening that we have not seen before this moment,” Thomas said.
For many women in the music industry, the peak of the #MeToo movement in 2017 and 2018, when powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly and Eric T. Schneiderman, the former attorney general of New York, were brought down by journalistic exposés of sexual misconduct, was a lost opportunity. The music industry’s major power centers were unaffected despite some accusations against prominent artists and executives, like Russell Simmons, a founder of the Def Jam label; singer-songwriter Ryan Adams; and shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
The industry has long been trailed by complaints of rampant harassment and abuse, enabled by work routines that blur into late-night parties where drugs and alcohol are readily available. It remains largely controlled by men, and women say that those who complain of harassment or abuse are exiled or silenced with legal settlements that include nondisclosure agreements.
“Pretty much the entire music industry is a toxic work environment,” said Jennifer Justice, a lawyer whose resume includes top positions at Roc Nation, Jay-Z’s company, and the festival producer Superfly.
In a 2018 survey of more than 1,200 musicians, 72% of female respondents said they had been discriminated against because of their sex, and 67% of them said they had been a victim of sexual harassment.
Drew Dixon, who worked in music in the 1990s and 2000s but said her career was cut short after she was abused by Simmons and Reid — both of whom she has sued — said accusers faced tremendous pressure from a business designed to protect its stars at all costs.
“You’re not just going up against the person who assaulted you,” Dixon said. “You are going against everyone who benefits from their brand and revenue stream. Those forces will mobilize against any accuser. It’s daunting.”
Dixon sued Reid for sexual assault; in court papers, he has denied her allegations. In an interview with The New York Times that was published in 2017, she accused Simmons of raping her; earlier this year, she sued Simmons for defamation after he suggested in an interview that her accusation was a lie.
Others cite the legal struggles faced by pop star Kesha, in the years immediately before #MeToo, as a discouraging example.
In 2014, Kesha accused Dr. Luke, her producer, of drugging and raping her, in a lawsuit in which she asked to be released from contracts that he controlled. Although Kesha drew support from fans and other female artists, her suit was dismissed by a judge, and she had to defend a defamation claim by Dr. Luke, whose real name is Lukasz Gottwald. The two finally settled last year, after almost a decade of litigation.
Part of what made the accusations against men like Weinstein and Fox News chief Roger Ailes catch fire in the news media is that they were made by famous women, like Hollywood actresses and Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson. When accusations were made in the music world — against stars like Diplo or Trey Songz — they often did not involve well-known women, and media coverage was limited.
That changed when Cassie, the R&B singer who was Combs’ longtime girlfriend, filed a bombshell suit in November accusing Combs of years of physical and sexual abuse.
The case was settled in one day, with a lawyer for Combs saying that he denied the claims. But her suit drew headlines around the world and prompted a cascade of suits by other women who also accused Combs of sexual assault and violence; some said Cassie’s case had inspired them to speak out after years of silence.
“It needed to be somebody super famous for it to hit the music industry,” said Tiffany Red, a songwriter who had worked closely with Cassie and has been a vocal critic of the industry. “When people saw Cassie do it, it was really impactful, the way it was when these famous movie stars came out about Harvey Weinstein. Then it blew open.”
Cassie’s case and many others were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York state law that, for one year, allowed people who believed they had been sexually abused to file a lawsuit even after the statute of limitations had expired.
That New York law — whose look-back window closed a week after Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, filed her suit — and a similar one in California have injected new energy into activists’ campaigns.
The success of the criminal prosecution against Combs will, of course, depend on the strength of the case that prosecutors present in court. Combs’ lawyers have already indicated they will challenge the government’s accusation that the elaborate sexual events described in his case as “freak offs” were nonconsensual.
But Thomas, of UltraViolet, feels that Cassie and the other women who spoke out against Combs have already created momentum to drive long-needed changes in the music world.
“It was so overwhelming that it started conversations about needing to understand,” she said. “There was a sense that this has been swept under the rug for too long.”
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