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The effect’s the righteous superstar outrage? The correct indignation?
It’s been nearly forty eight hours since Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was arrested and indicted on costs of intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice.
Moreover alleged on this indictment is his staging of recurrent ‘Freak Offs’, in which his victims may perhaps perchance be drugged and compelled to own intercourse for days on stay, left with such severe injuries they wanted weeks to recover — crimes stretching lend a hand to on the least 2009.
Nonetheless what manufacture we hear from an exchange that otherwise loves to preach about fairness, fairness, inclusion, and the rights and safety of the marginalized and abused? An exchange that so proudly pushed #MeToo?
Nothing. A disgusting, demanding, uniform silence.
Recall the A-checklist celebrities who with out be aware got here forward, or spoke out, after now-convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was exposed: Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Charlize Theron, Emma Thompson, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep — I could perhaps perchance dash on.
The effect’s the righteous superstar outrage? The correct indignation? It’s been nearly forty eight hours since Sean ‘ Diddy ‘ Combs was arrested and indicted on costs of intercourse trafficking, compelled labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice. (Above) Jay-Z embraces Sean Combs at Combs’s 50th birthday party in December 2019
Recall the A-checklist celebrities who with out be aware got here forward, or spoke out, after now-convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was exposed. (Above) Harvey Weinstein celebrates alongside Gwynneth Paltrow after ‘Shakespeare in Worship’ obtained the most productive image Oscar, in Los Angeles, March 22, 1999
Loads of of these ladies folk wrote op-eds within the Fresh York Cases. They valorized such activism. Nothing was chicer in 2018 than turning as much as the Golden Globes dressed in dismal, expressing solidarity with Weinstein’s victims and sorrow for all of the careers he vindictively killed, proclaiming that such systemic abuse would by no means be countenanced any other time.
Outrage prolonged into boardrooms, politics, and vogue.
Hillary Clinton — who took quite so much of money from the disgraced movie rich particular person — issued an announcement praising the victims who spoke up, writing that ‘their braveness and the make stronger of others is severe in helping to end this more or less behavior.’
Disney CEO Bob Iger called Weinstein’s actions ‘abhorrent and unacceptable’ with ‘no area in this day’s society.’
Vogue editor Anna Wintour: ‘appalling and unacceptable.’
These are nevertheless a smattering of superstar social justice warriors who, despite their previously terminate ties to a decades-lengthy identified predator, felt they wanted to focus on out — perhaps, in some situations, to effect their own jobs and reputations, nevertheless who nevertheless made it sure that Weinstein was done, stumbled on guilty or no longer.
Yet when Combs’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, whose song career Combs helped open, bravely filed a civil dash neatly with in opposition to him closing November — a dash neatly with that would furthermore own effect her own existence in threat — nearly no person stood along with her.
Among her allegations: Relentless beatings, including one in January 2009 after Combs noticed Ventura talking to a song supervisor at a celebration in L.A.: ‘[Combs] modified into livid . . . Within the automobile leaving the club, Mr. Combs beat Ms. Ventura, pushing her correct into a nook of the automobile and stomping on her face. . . [she] was bleeding profusely, and was ushered into Mr. Combs’s home, the effect she began to throw up from the violent assault.’
When Combs’s ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, whose song career Combs helped open, bravely filed a civil dash neatly with in opposition to him closing November — a dash neatly with that would furthermore own effect her own existence in threat — nearly no person stood along with her.
Combs denied all of it, till surveillance video of an assault in a Los Angeles hotel in 2016 was launched closing twelve months: Cassie making her salvage some distance off from what we now know was a ‘Freak Off’, Combs working after her dressed in nothing nevertheless a towel, grabbing her by the neck, throwing her to the bottom and kicking her while she was down, over and over and over.
That is what he did in public. Think concerning the atrocities he may perhaps well furthermore had been able to in non-public.
What was hanging then, nearly one twelve months within the past, was the identical silence. Not one superstar or colleague got here forward to defend Combs, to command that there was no manner he may perhaps well own committed such savagery, that Ventura’s detailed accusations needed to be a money snatch or revenge by a girl scorned.
One may perhaps perchance be safe to judge, as was the case with Weinstein, that other folks knew.
Yet, glance on the hip-hop icons and superstar friends who are all-too-nonetheless: Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Rihanna. Fresh York Metropolis mayor and nightlife habitué Eric Adams, who gave Combs a key to Fresh York Metropolis closing twelve months — a key he revoked three weeks after the Cassie video got here to gentle.
Jennifer Lopez, who dated Combs within the ’90s and was arrested with him in connection with a 1999 club taking pictures that left one victim with section of a bullet lodged in her face, has said nothing.
She was on the invite checklist for his 50th birthday party in 2019, as had been Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, Put up Malone, Cardi B and Offset, Kevin Hart, Mary J. Blige, Pharrell, Kanye West, Naomi Campbell, Lil’ Kim, Usher, The Weeknd, Janelle Monáe, Queen Latifah, and The united states’s own ambassador to the 2024 Paris Olympics, Snoop Dogg — to boot to the aforementioned Jay-Z and Beyoncé.
None of these of us knew? The effect’s his honest correct friend Oprah?
Stare on the hip-hop icons and superstar friends who are all-too-nonetheless: Jay-Z and Beyoncé. Rihanna. Fresh York Metropolis mayor and nightlife habitué Eric Adams, who gave Combs a key to Fresh York Metropolis closing twelve months (above)— a key he revoked three weeks after the Cassie video got here to gentle.
Ashton Kutcher, who so deplorably defended convicted serial rapist Danny Masterson, is a terminate, longtime buddy of Combs. On an episode of ‘Sizzling Ones’ in 2019, Kutcher was asked about that. ‘I’ve obtained plenty I will be capable to no longer uncover’, Kutcher said.
This was Combs interviewed by Andy Cohen on ‘Stare What Occurs Live’ in 2018.
Cohen: Hiya, what manufacture you watched of Oprah for president?
Combs: I care for that.
Cohen: It’s seemingly you’ll perchance perchance perhaps furthermore own identified her neatly for a extraordinarily very lengthy time.
Combs: Yes.
Ashton Kutcher, who so deplorably defended convicted serial rapist Danny Masterson, is a terminate, longtime buddy of Combs. On an episode of ‘Sizzling Ones’ in 2019, Kutcher was asked about that.
‘I’ve obtained plenty I will be capable to no longer uncover’, Kutcher said.
I will bet.
In December 2019, Beyoncé posted a birthday message to ‘Diddy’ on her Instagram narrative, a image of her husband and Combs on a sofa with hands over their mouths, a put up that continues to be up this day.
What more or less message does this ship to Combs’s other victims, ones U.S. District Licensed legit Damian Williams has said he’s sure will approach forward?
Every superstar in a area to lend a hand here have to restful manufacture so.
To this level, most productive two hip-hop figures own spoken out: 50 Cent, who is engaged on a Netflix documentary exposing Combs, and Eminem, who has rapped about Combs’s lengthy-rumored involvement within the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.
On his new album ‘Gasoline — Shady Edition’, Eminem raps: ‘Till he’s in police handcuffs, guilty, will he step up?/Enjoy gee, by no means turned himself in, who knows all of the murders there’ll had been’.
In July, 50 Cent (real establish Curtis Jackson), told The Hollywood Reporter that Combs lies about ‘the total thing’.
‘I have been very vocal about no longer going to Puffy parties and doing s**t esteem that’, he said. ‘I have been staying out of that s**t for years. . . Enjoy, they let him salvage away with it.’
What more or less message does this ship to Combs’s other victims, ones U.S. District Licensed legit Damian Williams has said he’s sure will approach forward? Every superstar in a area to lend a hand here have to restful manufacture so.
All people knew.
On Wednesday, a 2nd federal think refused to grant Combs bail. He’ll stay in prison correct thru his upcoming trial.
Within the meantime, his attorneys are blaming the female victims. Of Ventura, lead attorney Marc Agnifilo had the gall to snort she desires to be satisfied about her time with Combs.
‘These two of us had been in care for,’ Agnifilo said of Combs and Ventura, time out her within the indictment as ‘Sufferer-1.’
Ventura, he said, ‘ended up marrying the trainer that Mr. Combs obtained her . . . Years later, she realized she had a correct thing with Mr. Combs.’
That is the more or less horrifying misogyny that allowed a monster esteem Combs to hurry free for see you later. We’ve heard, for years now, that ‘silence equals violence.’
If that’s to intend one thing — neatly, who in hip-hop, in politics and vogue or any area of energy, will now focus on up for these victims?