Stephen A. Smith is a New York Times Bestselling Author, Executive Producer, host of ESPN's First Take, and co-host of NBA Countdown.
Stephen A. reacts to the federal indictment against Bad Boy Entertainment mogul, Sean “Diddy” Combs. Joining him to discuss the case is “Entertainment Tonight” Host Kevin Frazier who details the music mogul’s Hollywood impact and allegations of disturbing past behavior.
Joining me to talk about the federal indictment of Sean Diddy Combs and his impact in Hollywood. Is my friend, my brother, the host of entertainment tonight, the one and only Kevin Frasier, one I affectionately called Ky Frage.
What's going on? Big Time? How are you man? How's everything?
I'm fantastic. Let's get into this.
Today's indictments A dramatic four four man who was once one of the most respected men in the business of entertainment. Of course, explain Diddy's impact in the world of entertainment. Let's get that out of the way first.
Well, let's just remember a year ago he received the key to the City of New York.
That tells you how important he is. Is a son of New York.
But he was always looked at as a hit maker, one of the big producers and moguls in this business.
And then when he built his.
Business with Sarak Vodka, working with Adagio and also owning a television channel in Revolt, he was looked at as more than just a music business person, but as a media mogul. And that is what is stunning about all this because this media empire that he created was created in many ways with.
Force, a culture of fear.
According to these documents, kidnapping coersion. There are so many things when you read these documents that blow your mind about what was going on behind the scenes at Comes Enterprise.
What's Hollywood saying about him?
And what have they been saying about him over the last few months since Homeland Security rated his homes in both Los Angeles and Miami.
Well, there's been a distancing from him, but also you have to understand that underneath it all, people in Hollywood. There were whispers, people knew things, they talked about things before the lawsuits came out, but no one was ever willing to step up. Remember Harvey Weinstein. There were whispers, was talk about these things that were going on, but no one would ever step up. And then people saw the Cassie lawsuit and that video, and the video was so damning that everyone has been like hands off when it comes to Diddy. You don't hear the music, you don't see any of the things that he has produced, and you see that video right there where he savagely beat Cassie in a hotel hall groom in a hotel hallway. This is undeniable and let me take you back to R.
Kelly. The video didn't lie.
You can deny everything you want, you can say I'm innocent as much as you want, but the video doesn't lie. And prosecutors are saying that they have a plethora of video on hand. Throughout this investigation, they have gathered a lot of video showing the different things that he has done that have led to these charges.
You know, I'm wondering when you see or you hear of people separating themselves from distancing themselves from him. Obviously the default position would be somebody that's in this world of trouble, the persona agrada. You want to stay away from them. You don't want anything to do with them. But there have been people and noise emanating out of Hollywood that there are some who are keeping their distance from him because they may be culpable as well, because obviously they knew. Some people are intimating folks where other folks were involved.
Et cetera, et cetera.
What kind of indication have you gotten reporting on this story, reporting on the business of Hollywood and so many of the things that have transpired. What of intel can you provide us? As it pertains the possible involvement of anybody else or is this all about Diddy?
Sure, if you look at the case and they brought recal charges, they're federal recal charges, and the reason they did that is so they can include the entire.
Combs Enterprises organization.
That means the people who aided and embedded him now are also liable and could be brought into this lawsuit. There have been lots of inner views with lots of people, and so there's an expectation that either people will testify against him or they will also be charged down the road. And then people have been very vocal about some of the things they saw, like Don Richards saying that she sat at a table with a very high powered music executive and other entertainers and watched as Diddy punched Cassie in the face and then they went about their meeting that she was John Richards says that she was held hostage by Ditty in the back of a Bentley and she had to call her father to drive into New York City to make sure she was okay. So there are all these charges, and remember ten lawsuits, not the criminal lawsuits, but the other individual lawsuits that also stand right now against Ditty.
I'm wondering about this as well, because I'm listening. We're talking to Kevin Frazer for the host of entertainment tonight, right he Uner Stephen. They show over the digital it was a YouTube and of course heart radio. When I think about these charges, it says sex trafficking, racketeering charges, et cetera. They're clearly after more than just him. When did this all begin?
Kevin?
It's one thing to hear the noise, but when did we all get the sense, wait a minute, the inevitable is coming. Folks are out to get him. He'd done made the wrong enemies for crying out loud, because the belief was this has been going on for quite a long time. Enough people had seen it, enough, people were quiet about it, and then all of a sudden, folks stopped being quiet. When did the beginning of the demise of p Diddy take place in your eyes based on this particular case against him?
For me, it was when Adagio decided to separate themselves from him. So Rock had been very had done very, very well, and then Adagio was like, we are separating from Diddy. And at first, when you hear the rumblings before it became public. When you hear the rumblings that they are willing to pay him off just to get to separate from him, you wonder what more is coming down the road, and that there must be more coming down the road. So keep this in mind, Steve, he sold his steak in Revolt. He has his money from Adagio, so he is flush with cash. He is also using his homes to put up this fifty million dollar bail package. He went to New York to turn himself in to show that I am not a flight risk.
I'm around. So he plans on fighting this. He wants to. He has to fight. But the issue will.
Be the video evidence and all the things that were confiscated from his house. So when Adagio began, when you heard the rumblings that things were going wrong with Adagio and some Rock, That's when I began to say something big is going to happen, and something bad is going to happen.
But I mean, just a year ago, New York was lebrating Diddy. Think about that, Steve.
The same people who were celebrating him are now putting him in handcuffs.
But see, I'm thinking about it from this standpoint, Kevin, I'm looking at this and I'm saying, Okay, the violence is obvious because you caught on video and the video ain't lying.
You know, you beat Cassaventura up. You beat it up. We saw that.
We witnessed that with our own two eyes. He came on there raft and said he was really in a messed up place. He apologized, He tried to show some level of contrition. Nobody was buying it because it was weeks removed from him categorically and emphatically denying that the incident ever took place before he ultimately got exposed for lying. But when they say sex trafficking, see, that's the kind of stuff that resonate with these freak off parties and.
Stuff like that.
In terms of those kind of details, what are people in Hollywood saying about that? Are they saying this happens all the time, it's par for the course, or was it a diddy specialty that finally got exposed Steve.
I mean, let's go back to Jeffrey Epstein and all the other things that went on with him and the Hollywood names that were involved, and then you go to Harvey Weinstein and This is what drove the Me Too movement. These things when you have people who have a power dynamic to wave that over other people's dreams of success and the fear of losing that success once you're put into the machine, and that you are forced in cole earth to do things against your will, To hold women.
And force them.
To have sex with male sex workers while you work, is a different level of depravity. And you have to look at this and stop for a second and say, how could a person build something like that? How could a person have something like that? And it's because of the power dynamic to hold people's dreams in your hand. People want to People wanted to be successful. They wanted to be stars, and when you want to be a star, sometimes you'll do any damn thing to be a star.
Instead. Keep this in mind.
When Don Richards, she claims that after she called her father, and her father came up and confronted Ditty and said, I want to make sure my daughter is okay. The next night, Danity Kane performed Ones and l and afterwards Down says that did he went to her and said, don't ever get your family involved again.
Kevin Fraser, you know a lot of people saying, you know, they're asking a question, why aren't more people that knew speaking out against Ditty.
I'm because indeed, they could be in trouble. They could be a part. I agree about this.
If you were if you were silent, if you were sitting at the table, as Don Richards claims, and you saw Ditty punch Cassie in the face in a while you're eating and you didn't say anything, that's a problem. And let's forget about what it does to you, you know, whether it's federally or with local officials. Well, let's talk about the court of public opinion and how that can damage someone's career because you saw these women being abused.
I'm thinking along the lines of this though, and I'm not disagreeing with what you just said. Yeah, but I'm also contemplating the federal indictment, the Rico chargers. You know, they're coming for more than just him, so the damning evidence. Remember, they're saying that, Okay, you had these freak offs, You had these women that you know, you had engaging in all kinds of sex acts and what have you you with male professional male workers. Okay, but you also have a situation where it wasn't just for himself, it might have been for others. And so they're talking about they're literally calling Bad Boy Entertainment a criminal enterprise.
This is what they're saying. I'm wondering the kind of folks that after.
Are the folks in Hollywood lying back and wait, wondering who's next? Because ultimately, if you have workers that you can and they can be punished and what have you, it's presumed they're gonna dime him out, and ultimately they're gonna force him to comply. And Diddy is gonna dime out a whole bunch of people. It seems like that's what everybody's waiting for right now.
See if there have been other big names that have been associated and flooded around this, and I don't want to say any names until legally they push forward. But you have to understand, even if it's not Diddy who turns, it's other people in this organization. Just think about this government obtained that I want to give ninety cell phones, laptops, cloud storage accounts, as well as over thirty other electronic and storage devices like hard drives, thumb drives, cameras, and surveillance systems and a bunch of electronic data. So you have to believe that when that case is laid out that what you're going to see is video of these wrongdoings and other people involved, the people who ate it and avetted him, the people who helped him pull this off in his organization, Well, they're already in. But what about the other people who attended these events and these parties and these freak COFs. Because there were other people who attended these freak afts.
This is going to be ugly.
There's going to be reverberations throughout Hollywood because even if you didn't attend, if you knew, if you saw, if you understood what.
Was going on. I mean, years and years.
Ago, I was at a party for a very high profile star and his people had Diddy removed from that party because they said he was out of control. He was clearly on something other than just having drinks. There were issues there, and they banned him from coming to those parties. And I'm talking about a high profile star. The information is there now, it's just how much of that information is going to come out.
He's in a world of trouble legally. But I'm not ruling out the possibility that he could be in more danger than that because with all of that electronic equipment, those cameras, those surveillance videos, all of this stuff that he has, Chances are he was able to keep folks quiet one would resume because they know he had a mountain of evidence against them. What if you're fearful that he's going to target you and he's going to dime you out. We don't know what's next, man, We really really don't know. Kevin Fraser. Appreciate you one man.
Thank you so much to take the time schedule see you keep this in mind real quick. Remember what happened to Jeffrey Epstein. He didn't survive. He didn't survive.
Survive well, we know that case. We know that case all too well. Appreciate you man, Thanks a lot.
Man.
We'll talk like this as always talks him.