Sean Combs and his co-worker tied up and raped a woman and sold the assault video “as pornography,” the lawsuit says

A woman has claimed that Sean “Diddy” Combs and his former bodyguard drugged, tied up and raped her. She later learned that the alleged rape was recorded and allegedly sold as pornography, according to court documents that Rolling stone.

Thalia Graves broke down in tears as she spoke of the “inner pain” she suffered as a result of the alleged attack during a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday. She is the 11th person to accuse Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual assault, claiming the Bad Boy Entertainment founder attacked her in 2001 at his infamous Daddy's House recording studio in New York City.

More from Rolling Stone

Graves' lawsuit comes a week after the 54-year-old was charged with sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit organized crime. “I'm glad he's locked up, but this is only a temporary sense of relief,” Graves said in her statement.

Her attorney, Gloria Allred, declined to comment on whether Graves played a role in the grand jury proceedings that led to Combs' arrest by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.

Graves says she became friends with Combs in late 1999 through her then-boyfriend, who held an executive position at Bad Boy. Because of her boyfriend's position at the company, Graves says she frequently attended events held at Combs' homes and often visited her boyfriend at the Daddy's House recording studio. (The boyfriend is not named in the lawsuit.)

Things took a new turn when Graves allegedly received a call from Combs, who wanted to meet with her to “discuss her boyfriend's alleged performance issues,” according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday morning in the Southern District of New York.

Graves wanted to help her friend and already knew Combs. She agreed to the meeting. “It was obviously a sick and perverse way for him to abuse his ownership and title at Bad Boy and its subsidiaries to abuse the plaintiff and demonstrate his power and ability to humiliate her friend and his superior,” the lawsuit states.

A few hours later, Combs arrived at Graves' residence in an SUV, driven by his then-bodyguard Joseph Sherman, aka Big Joe. Graves says she accepted a glass of wine from Combs and quickly became “lightheaded, dizzy and physically weak.” When they reached the recording studio, she struggled to walk, according to Graves, and when they reached Combs' office, she lost consciousness, according to Graves.

“In retrospect, it is clear that Combs had arranged for a drug to be mixed into the plaintiff's drink, since a few sips of wine would never have had such an effect on her,” the lawsuit states.

When Graves came to, she said she was naked and bound. Her hands were tied behind her back with what felt like a plastic bag. As she screamed for help, Sherman allegedly slammed her face into a pool table.

“Shortly thereafter, Combs entered the room naked,” the lawsuit states. “Then he bent [Graves] over the table so that her feet dangled above the floor, he pushed her down violently and penetrated her anally without her consent… [Graves] was immobilized, physically overwhelmed, drugged and tied up.”

Graves claims she screamed in pain, but Combs ignored her and continued the alleged violent attack. As she tried to escape, she slammed her head on the pool table. Graves claims she lost consciousness again, and when she woke up, Sherman allegedly slapped her multiple times and forced her to perform oral sex.

Some time later, Graves claims, she woke up naked and alone on a couch. She claims she was in “severe pain and [had] Burning in vagina and anus” with bruising on her face and wrists. “Still dazed and weak, plaintiff called a chauffeur her family regularly hired and knew well,” her lawsuit states. Graves claims she was disheveled, crying uncontrollably and in excruciating pain. (Neither Sherman nor a representative for Combs immediately responded to a request for comment.0

“The driver drove her to the hospital and attempted to convince her to report the rape and obtain a rape kit, but she was unable to leave the car, 'shaking and crying hysterically,' and terrified of what Combs would do to her and her family if she reported him,” the lawsuit states. Graves informed her then-boyfriend of the incident, the lawsuit states, but discouraged her from going to the police, allegedly telling her “that doing so could have a negative impact on his own career.”

In the years that followed, Graves claims she moved several times and Combs and Sherman threatened her to keep quiet about the alleged assault. However, she claims she told close friends what happened.

In November 2023, days after Casandra “Cassie” Ventura filed her sex trafficking and sexual abuse lawsuit against Combs, Graves claims her ex-boyfriend told her that Combs and Sherman had recorded the alleged rape and shown it to others. “He disclosed that Combs and Sherman regularly and routinely recorded women engaging in sexual acts without their consent and made those videos available to the public, including by selling the tapes as pornography,” the lawsuit states.

Graves suffers from PTSD, severe depression, “suicidal thoughts and obsessions and has attempted to end her life,” her lawsuit states. Her experiences have left her living in “constant fear.” She is suing Combs, Sherman and eight of Combs' companies under New York's Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act and a state civil rights law for allegedly secretly recording and distributing the sex tape.

This is the latest civil suit against Combs, who has been accused of sexually abusing at least seven other people since Ventura filed her sex trafficking complaint against him last November. Combs settled with Ventura within 24 hours for an undisclosed amount, but her 35-page complaint became the blueprint for prosecuting the music mogul and inspired others to file lawsuits as well.

On Thanksgiving, the day New York's Adult Survivors Act was set to expire, two other women filed suit against Combs with similarly disturbing allegations. Joi Dickerson-Neal claimed that Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1991 when she was a student at Syracuse University. In a similar claim to Graves' suit, she alleged that Combs filmed the incident and showed the video to others. Through a spokesperson, Combs denied the allegations and called the suit a “money-grabbing scheme.”

Hours after Dickerson-Neal's lawsuit made headlines, Liza Gardner claimed that Combs and singer-songwriter Aaron Hall took turns raping her after an MCA Records event in 1990. Gardner says she was 16 at the time and that Combs “got angry and started attacking and choking her” until she nearly “passed out” during an altercation a day later. Combs and his lawyers also denied Gardner's allegations, calling them “fabricated.”

In early December, a fourth accuser alleged that Combs, former Bad Boy president Harve Pierre and a third gang raped her in Combs' New York recording studio in 2003, when she was 17. In late February, Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones filed a lawsuit accusing Combs of sexual abuse, harassment and lack of compensation for his work on the Grammy-nominated T.The Love Album.

After federal agents raided Combs' homes in Los Angeles and Miami Beach in March, more women filed lawsuits alleging violent sexual assault.

Model Crystal McKinney filed a lawsuit on May 21 alleging that Combs drugged and sexually assaulted her after she attended a Sean John fashion show on the arm of designer Roberto Cavalli in February 2003. She claimed Combs had previously drugged and sexually assaulted the 22-year-old. McKinney claimed that Combs pressured her to take a hit from a laced joint, led her to a bathroom and forced her to perform oral sex.

On May 24, April Lampros filed a lawsuit claiming she was a student and intern at Arista Records when she began an on-off relationship with Combs in early 1994. She claims Combs sexually abused her three times over the course of their four-year relationship and again in early 2001. Like Graves and Dickerson-Neal, she claims Combs made a sex tape of her and showed it to several people in 1997.

Earlier this month, former Danity Kane and Diddy-Dirty Money member Dawn Richard claimed that Combs sexually harassed and assaulted her and forced her to “perform commercial sexual acts” through a “pattern of coercive threats and displays of brutal force.”

The best of Rolling Stone

Subscribe to the RollingStone newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.