How did 50 Cent & Netflix‘s Sean Combs: The Reckoning really obtain the behind the scenes footage of Diddy scheming with his lawyers on the eve of his Sept 2024 arrest? A partial explanation as delivered tonight
Combs’ team now say they know how up-close and personal footage of the now incarcerated and much-accused Grammy winner ended up in the chart topping docuseries, though they’re not naming names — yet.
“For over two years we have been working on a project profiling Sean “Diddy” Combs,” said self-described “Sean Combs’ documentarian” Michael Oberlies tonight. “The footage in question was not released by me or anyone authorized to handle Sean Combs’ materials; it was by a third party who covered for me for three days while I was out of state,” Oberlies, who also goes by Obes went on to explain of the scenes of Diddy strategizing and scheming with his legal team in the days leading up to his September 2024 arrest on sex trafficking, racketeering, and transporting individuals for prostitution.
Slightly contradicting previous statements from Combs’ reps, Oberlies adds: “This incident had nothing to do with any fee dispute or contract issue. The actions of the parties involved reflect the lack of integrity every storyteller should uphold. Taking footage intended for our project to advance a narrative that was not our own is both unethical and unacceptable.”
Facing repeated accusations from Combs’ side that the footage was “stolen,” Netflix has also been slammed that Reckoning was “corporate retaliation” from Ted Sarandos after being allegedly rebuffed a couple of years by Combs himself over a docu the streamer supposedly want to make. Add that all up and reps for Combs imply a lawsuit could be looming, as they consider their “options.”
Or as Combs’ lawyers exclaimed in a December 1 lcease and desist letter, which cc’d Sarandos and Bela Bajaria: “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.”
In response, after the very successful launch of the four-part Reckoning on December 2, Netflix has directly commented on how they got their hands on the damning footage — Footage is must be said that goes a lot further of proving the harshest charges against Diddy than the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York’s far from successful case ever did this past summer.
“The claims being made about Sean Combs: The Reckoning are false,” a spokesperson for the streamer said last week. “The project has no ties to any past conversations between Sean Combs and Netflix. 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.”
The streamer also put out a statement from Sean Combs: The Reckoning director Alexandria Stapleton.
“It came to us, we obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights,” Stapleton said of the September 10 2024 footage, which Combs apparently wanted for his own documentary project. The footage, which shows a clearly agitated Diddy lashing out about “losing” to his lawyer, also instructing his legal team “to find someone that’ll work with us that has dealt in the dirtiest of dirty business” to push back against the various claims against him.
Contacted by Deadline Wednesday, Netflix had no additional comment and directed us to Stapleton’s remarks.
Currently behind bars at the low security Fort Dix in New Jersey, Combs escaped the sex trafficking and RICO charges on July 2, but found guilty by the jury on two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Facing dozens and dozens of civil suits, and a new sexual battery probe opened last month by the LA County Sheriff’s department, Combs was sentenced to 30 months in early October. With time served taken into account, he is set to be released in June 2028 — unless his fast tracked appeal proves a winner.
