Another woman has come forward to accuse Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual assault, alleging the hip-hop mogul sexually assaulted her four times between 1995 and the early 2000s, according to court documents filed on Thursday.
April Lampros claimed she met Combs in early 1994 while she was a college student at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, and that he “love-bombed her” before his attempts to woo her “manifested into an aggressive, coercive, and abusive relationship based on sex,” according to the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court of New York County.
Lampros is the seventh person to accuse Combs of sexual assault in the past six months after Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed a bombshell sexual trafficking lawsuit against him in November. While Lampros claims that her last physical encounter with Combs was in the early 2000s, she says her relationship with Combs came back to haunt her in 2023 when she learned Combs had allegedly recorded a sex tape of her and showed it to multiple people, according to the lawsuit.
A representative for Combs did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
The two overlapped at Arista, Bad Boy Entertainment’s parent company at the time, where Lampros was an intern. As part of her filing, Lampros included a photo of herself with Combs, hanging out at his home in Florida, and a handwritten Valentine’s Day card, signed “Puffy.”
In the suit, Combs’ gentlemanly manners allegedly vanished one night when Lampros says she met up with him at a downtown New York bar in 1995. Although Lampros said she didn’t drink, she eventually “succumbed to pressure” due to Combs’ “delusional and violent outbursts.” After a few sips, Lampros says she began to feel uneasy. She continued to feel like the “walls were closing in on her,” according to the suit, when Combs escorted her back to a hotel. Lampros claims Combs forced himself on her, ignoring her protests. “Ms. Lampros was being raped by Mr. Combs, and she soon passed out,” the lawsuit claims.
Combs allegedly assaulted Lampros a second time in a parking garage near his Manhattan apartment, physically forcing her to perform oral sex, according to the lawsuit. When Lampros tried to distance herself from Combs, he allegedly tried to win her back with “gifts and empty promises,” before switching to a “mobster persona” and “became angry, threatening, and forceful.” Lampros claims that due to his threatening and harassing behavior, she felt “stuck” with Combs and had “no way out.”
“She felt that if she disobeyed him, he would take away her dreams of pursuing a career in his world,” the lawsuit alleges. “Mr. Combs would also threaten to blacklist her in the industry if she tried to mess with him in any way. Ms. Lampros’ dreams and everything she’s been working hard for were in the palm of his hands.”
In 1996, Lampros claims that Combs sexually assaulted her a third time when he forced her and his former girlfriend Kim Porter to take ecstasy and allegedly demanded Porter to have sex with Lampros, the suit claims. Although Lampros alleges that she “vocally opposed this idea, Combs quickly reminded her that she had no control over the situation as he could make her lose her job,” the suit claims. Combs masturbated while he watched the women, according to the suit, before he allegedly sexually assaulted Lampros.
Lampros says she ended her relationship with Combs in 1998 but bumped into him at an event at the Rockefeller Center in the early 2000s, allegedly prompting Combs to beg to see her again. Eventually, Lampros says she allowed Combs to come over to her apartment where he began to kiss and touch her against her will, according to the suit. But Lampros was able to stop the encounter and demand Combs leave.
More than two decades later in 2023, Lampros claims an unidentified man approached a man Lampros was dating and said he had seen a sexual video of Lampros and Combs in 1997. Lampros “was told that Mr. Combs apparently recorded them having sex without her knowing and showed it to multiple people,” the lawsuit claims.
“As a result of Defendant Combs’ conduct,” the lawsuit adds, Lampros “has suffered and continues to suffer harm, including physical injury, severe emotional distress, humiliation, anxiety, and other consequential damages for which she is entitled to an award of monetary damages and other relief.”
In wake of Ventura’s lawsuit, Lampros and four more women and a man have accused Combs of sexual abuse. Joi Dickerson-Neal claimed Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1991. She claimed Combs filmed the incident and showed the video to others in an act described as “revenge porn.” Through a rep, Combs denied the allegation, saying “[this] 32-year-old story is made up and not credible.”
Liza Gardner claimed she was 16 years old when Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall took turns raping her following an Uptown Records event in 1990. She further claimed that Combs later began “assaulting and choking” her until she almost “passed out” because he was worried she might divulge what happened. “These are fabricated claims falsely alleging misconduct from over 30 years ago and filed at the last minute,” a Combs spokesperson said of Gardner’s lawsuit. “This is nothing but a money grab.”
A woman from Detroit claimed Combs, former Bad Boy President Harve Pierre, and a third man gang raped her at Combs’ New York recording studio in 2003 when she was 17 years old. And in February, music producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones sued Combs for sexual assault, harassment, and not compensating him for work on the Grammy-nominated The Love Album. Combs’ representatives denied the allegations in both cases. And this week, model Crystal McKinney became the sixth person to sue Combs within a span of six months. She claimed Combs drugged her and forced her to perform oral sex on him at his New York recording studio in 2003.
Combs has denied any wrongdoing in each case. Still, he stepped down from the chairmanship of his Revolt TV media company last year as more than a dozen companies fled his e-commerce platform. In January, liquor giant Diageo cut him loose in a private settlement under which Combs will no longer be a joint owner of the tequila brand DeLeón or have any ties to Cîroc vodka.
Laura Davis is an entertainment aficionado who delves into the glitz and glamour of the entertainment industry. From Hollywood to Broadway, she offers readers an insider’s perspective on the world of movies, music, and pop culture.
