UPDATED with Netflix response: Less than a day after Sean Combs: The Reckoning debuted on Netflix, the Ted Sarandos-led streamer is taking Combs to task for claiming the docuseries executive produced by 50 Cent is an act of “corporate retaliation,” as Diddy lawyers allege.
“The claims being made about Sean Combs: The Reckoning are false,” a Netflix spokesperson told Deadline on Tuesday night.
In a cease-and-desist letter sent December 1, Combs’ attorneys insisted that failing to strong-arm the much accused and currently incarcerated Grammy winner to participate in a Netflix-controlled docu, co-CEO Sarandos turned to Diddy’s nemesis Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson in a “vindictive response.” With claims that 50 paid people to slag Diddy, the correspondence adds that damning pre-arrest footage of a seemingly scheming Combs from last year was “stolen.”
Today, as Combs looks to take formal legal action, the streamer says that’s all pure fiction.
“The project has no ties to any past conversations between Sean Combs and Netflix,” the rep added of Sarandos and Diddy’s professional relationship and any other docu project. “The footage of Combs leading up to his indictment and arrest were legally obtained.”
“This is not a hit piece or an act of retribution. Curtis Jackson is an executive producer but does not have creative control. No one was paid to participate.”
That’s pretty blunt, but still it seems there’s going to be a fifth episode to the four-part Reckoning — in court.
PREVIOUSLY, 3:19 PM PT: It turns out that the big man behind the scenes in the Sean Combs: The Reckoning saga isn’t Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson but Netflix boss Ted Sarandos, at least according to Diddy and his lawyers.
“Netflix chose Mr. Jackson as producer to punish Mr. Combs for refusing to play by its rules,” claims the December 1 cease-and-desist letter sent to the streamer’s top legal executive David Hyman by the incarcerated Combs’ attorneys over the four-parter docuseries that debuted today.
“In or about 2023, CEO Ted Sarandos proposed that Netflix produce a documentary about Mr. Combs. However, Mr. Combs rejected the proposal when Mr. Sarandos insisted he give up creative control,” the dense, four-page letter states of the latter, who attended the former’s 50th birthday party back in 2019. “Thus, the choice of Mr. Jackson to produce the Program was Netflix’s vindictive response to that rejection — an attempt by Netflix and Mr. Sarandos to ensure a one-sided character assassination, rather than a balanced and accurate portrayal.”
RELATED: ‘Sean Combs: The Reckoning’: Teaser Trailer For Shocking Doc Shows Diddy Warn “We’re Losing”
Putting the Reckoning and its damning portrait of Combs and his alleged crimes, rapes, violence against women, disregard for the law and more in the starkest light, the letter adds of Sarandos and Netflix’s supposed ploy: “It also ensured that a flagrant act of corporate retribution against Mr. Combs would be re-cast as one famous black man attacking another.”
From left: Sean Combs, Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant at Combs’ 50th birthday party in 2019
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
If the swipe against Sarandos (which Combs’ team also did in a public statement Monday), Netflix’s alleged true motivations and 50 Cent (who does not pop up in any way in Reckoning) weren’t crystal-clear from those comments, perhaps this from the letter will set you straight:
Considering the numerous derogatory and, frankly, ludicrous allegations Mr. Jackson has levelled against Mr. Combs during his years-long vengeful crusade to injure him, Mr. Jackson’s unconcealed animus towards Mr. Combs, and our understanding, based on information and belief, that individuals are being paid to participate—and are therefore incentivized to cast Mr. Combs in the most unfavorable light—it is a virtual certainty that the Program will be replete with false and defamatory statements, as well intimate details, obtained and published in violation of Mr. Combs’ privacy rights and in breach of numerous non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements about which Netflix and Mr. Jackson are (or should have been) aware.
A Combs foe long before the Bad Boy Records founder’s September 2024 arrest and this past summer’s trial for racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, that 50 Cent has trolled Diddy relentlessly, no one could argue. As well as announcing just after Combs’ arrest that he would produce a docu on his rival, Power franchise EP 50 Cent also has gone public in trying to derail a Donald Trump pardon for the “freak-off” obsessed ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ performer after Combs’ July 2 conviction on two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
RELATED: Trump Cools On Possible Diddy Pardon Over Risk Of MAGA Blowback
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson in 2024
Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Currently, with time served counted on his four-year sentence and an appeal on the criminal conviction underway, Diddy is behind bars(ish) at the cushy, low-security Fort Dix FCI in New Jersey. He is set to be released in June 2028. With a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department probe opened on Combs last month over allegations of a 2020 sexual battery against a music producer, let’s just say a Trump pardon looks very unlikely at this juncture.
Despite accusing Netflix of having “stolen” (as that press release Monday said) and “copyrighted” (and pretty damning) pre-arrest footage of a scheming Combs, the Grammy winner’s Sher Tremont team clearly failed to get the Alexandria Stapleton-directed “hit piece” Reckoning pulled Monday before its Tuesday launch. In the December 1 letter, which cc’s Sarandos and Bela Bajaria and builds on a July 3 C&D letter on the same subject, Combs’ lawyers state, “As you are undoubtedly aware, Mr. Combs has not hesitated to take legal action against media entities and others who violate his rights, and he will not hesitate to do so against Netflix.”
That was before Sean Combs: The Reckoning hit the streamer in the early hours this morning.
Today, Combs’ reps told Deadline that “after watching the series and now knowing what is in it, Sean’s team is reviewing its legal options and will decide shortly how best to respond.”
Contacted by Deadline, Netflix –as it did Monday — had no comment on Combs’ legal threats.
As they did on December 1, the streamer run by Sarandos and Greg Peters, which is bidding to snag a big piece of Warner Bros Discovery right now, offered a week-old comment by director Stapleton. Specifically, the filmmaker was commenting on the BTS footage of Combs telling one of his lawyers “to find someone that’ll work with us that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business” to help turn the tide on the various claims against him. “It came to us, we obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights,” Stapleton said of the September 2024 footage, which the much-accused Combs apparently wanted for his own documentary project.
As for Sean Combs: The Reckoning, turn down all the media and online noise and it is hard to tell how it is doing, even with a well-hyped and morning show-promoted launch. There are no viewing figures available as of today for Reckoning, however while it may not do Stranger Things 5 numbers, the series is expected to show up on Netflix’s domestic Top 10 chart on Wednesday. The four-parter’s international standing will be revealed next week.
Of course, by next week, this could have all gone way beyond cease-and-desist letters and CEO slagging and turned into a real legal showdown — the latest of many for Combs, who is facing literally dozens and dozens of civil suits on sexual assault, violence, drugging and more.
