I'm Disgusted by the Crimes Diddy is Accused of But Also by the Mogul's Army of Enablers
The thing that’s tricky about conspiracy theories is that there is generally at least a tiny element of truth to them. Conspiracy theorists take something that exists in our sick and sad and wonderful world and exaggerate it wildly, generally along racist, transphobic, or anti-Semitic lines.
QAnon is obviously delusional hogwash. The sad fact of the matter, however, is that there are plenty of extremely wealthy and powerful people, many involved in politics or the entertainment industry, who use that power and wealth to avoid consequences for their unspeakable sex crimes. They’re just garden variety, perverts, however, and not blood-drinking satanic cannibals.
We were reminded of that once again when Diddy, one of the richest and most powerful men in Hip Hop history, was accused of a slew of sex crimes.
This was not entirely unsurprising. The legal section of Diddy’s Wikipedia entry was voluminous even before explosive allegations from Diddy’s longtime ex-girlfriend/protege Cassie Ventura and up-and-coming music producer Rodney “Li’l Rod” Jones dramatically changed the way the businessman was seen.
I was surprised, however, by the sheer volume of accusations and by the depths of depravity Combs is accused of. Assuming that all of Diddy’s many accusers are not lying for a quick payday, as Diddy insists, then this was no one-off affair. This was not a single transgression but rather a pattern of behavior that went on for decades without becoming public knowledge or affecting Diddy’s extraordinary success as a businessman or “artist” in any way.
What’s particularly horrifying to me is that Diddy could not do it alone. He could not engage in this kind of behavior over a period of decades without considerable assistance. To facilitate this level of criminal enterprise, Diddy needed help—lots of help.
A whole system had to be in place to first ensure that the controversial billionaire could terrorize men, women, and children and then get away with it for a good quarter century.
Hundreds of people must have known what Diddy was doing and who he was doing it with, and to. Yet it took Cassie and Lil Rod coming forward with lawsuits for Diddy’s house of cards to come tumbling down.
Why did Diddy get away with it for so long? For starters, he is a billionaire. One billion dollars can buy a lot of silence.
There’s something morally dubious about billionaires in the first place. You have to have at least some small element of sociopathology not to hit the five hundred million dollar mark and think, “I have more money than any one human being should possibly have, and consequently more power, so I should probably give most of this money away for the sake of not being a horrible person.”
Just as Diddy can’t “write” or “produce” a song without the assistance of ten to fifteen anonymous flunkies, he can’t operate a large-scale sex and drug trafficking operation without people willing to look the other way or actively participate.
When Diddy’s transgressions came to light, Hulu understandably dropped a reality show it was developing around the disgraced mogul, tentatively titled Diddy +7, which would have followed the Bad Boy founder and his family.
Now, unfortunately for Mr. Combs, that title could refer to his children or the number of felony sexual assault, drugs, and sex trafficking charges he could soon be facing.
When I first read that Diddy was going to shoot a reality show at this point in his life and career, I was flummoxed. Why would someone with so much to hide invite television cameras into their life?
Then I thought about it a little, and it made sense. Diddy would undoubtedly have had full control over Diddy+7. Rather than reflect his actual life and existence as a prolific sex criminal and all-around degenerate, he could use the show to burnish his public image.
Diddy+7 would have allowed Diddy to portray himself publicly as he wants to be seen: as a passionate businessman, music world veteran, and loving father to a pack of similarly entrepreneurial children.
The show would have allowed Diddy to present his version of reality rather than the one that prosecutors will hopefully present in court.
R. Kelly similarly needed a massive system in place to be able to run an abusive sex cult for decades without legal or professional consequences.
I want to think that situations like these will cause us to rethink the power, money, and influence we give popular entertainers. I sincerely hope we’ll learn something important from these scandals, but we won’t. We never do.
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