Shocking new photos obtained by the Daily Mail show Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez locked in a heated confrontation on the night he is now accused of raping a 13-year-old girl.
According to the outlet, the photos were taken at Lotus nightclub on Sept. 7, 2000 — the same night Combs is accused of sexually assaulting a young girl along with two other unidentified celebrities after the MTV Video Music Awards.
An eyewitness who observed the two arguing said after their dispute, Combs headed for the exit with “his entourage and a group of girls.”
“Diddy held a Cristal champagne bottle the entire time serving his guests,” the source recalled. “Everyone was dancing and enjoying themselves but as the night progressed, tensions rose between him and J.Lo.”
Last week, Combs was hit with a new wave of lawsuits, with one alleged victim claiming that he drugged and raped her when she was 13 years old as an unnamed “male celebrity” and “female celebrity” participated.
The new claims were filed by Tony Buzbee’s Buzbee Law Firm, which announced earlier this month it is filing 120 lawsuits against Combs, who has been in federal custody since his Sept. 16 arrest at a Manhattan hotel after police charged him with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
In one of the new lawsuits obtained by Variety, Deadline and NBC News, a Jane Doe claims she was assaulted after attending a party that followed the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000 when she was 13.
The woman says that she was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement and given a drink that made her “feel woozy and lightheaded” during a bash at a house.
“Looking for a place to rest, Plaintiff entered what she believed to be an empty bedroom so she could lie down for a moment,” reads the lawsuit.
She alleges that Combs entered the room with “a male and female celebrity” and “aggressively approached Plaintiff with a crazed look in his eyes, grabbed her, and said, ‘You are ready to party!’”
Combs then threw the girl toward another male celebrity, who is referred to in the lawsuit as “Celebrity A.”
“Plaintiff was held down by Celebrity A who vaginally raped her while Combs and Celebrity B, a female, watched. After the male celebrity finished, Combs then vaginally raped Plaintiff while the Celebrity A and Celebrity B watched. Combs attempted to force Plaintiff to perform oral sex on him, but she resisted by hitting Combs in the neck; he stopped,” the lawsuit adds.
After the alleged assault, the woman says she “fell into a deep depression which continues to affect every facet of her life.”
In a statement to the Associated Press, Combs’ representatives slammed the latest lawsuits saying their client “has never sexually assaulted anyone — adult or minor, man or woman.”
The Mail’s source says that on the night in question, Lopez, who was 31 at the time, was in good spirits having won the award for Best Dance Video for her song Waiting for Tonight.
But the evening took a turn for unknown reasons before the pair, who dated from 1999 to 2001, were snapped having a verbal disagreement.
Combs and Lopez’s two-year relationship was far from smooth. In 1999, the couple was involved in a shooting at a New York City nightclub that left three people injured.
Lopez was never charged, but Combs and his bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones and the 21-year-old rapper Jamal “Shyne” Barrow all went to trial. Combs and Jones were eventually acquitted, but Barrow was found guilty of five charges including criminal possession of a weapon, first-degree assault and reckless endangerment.
Earlier this year, Barrow said Combs “destroyed my life,” with Natania Reuben, one of the shooting victims, blaming the I’ll Be Missing You hitmaker for her injuries.
“I literally watched them pull out the guns, I had a clear point of view. I mean, for God’s sake, I got shot in my nose. I was facing them directly. I watched everything occur and have described it, vehemently to all parties involved,” Reuben said during an appearance on NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas Reports in March. “I have nine bullet fragments remaining in my face.”
Lopez addressed her tumultuous relationship with the disgraced rapper in 2003, saying that she broke up with Combs after he cheated on her.
“It was the first time I was with someone who wasn’t faithful,” she told VIBE. “I was in this relationship with Puff where I was totally crying, crazy, and going nuts, it really took my whole life in a tailspin … I never caught him, but I just knew. He’d say he was going to a club for a couple of hours and then never come back that night.”
She said the experience left her questioning their long-term future. “I had to think, do I want to be home with kids in 10 years wondering where somebody is at three in the morning?”
But Lopez quickly rebounded with dancer Cris Judd, who she married in September 2001 and divorced less than a year later.
”Coming out of a torrid relationship, I meet this sweet person who’s so refreshing,” she said. ”But marriage is not just about love. I thought I had learned that in my first marriage…. I loved Cris, still love him, he’s one of the best people. This wasn’t an easy thing to walk away from, but we didn’t have what it takes to make a marriage work…. Cris knows the last thing I ever wanted in this f***ing world was to hurt him.”