In November 2023, the day that Cassie Ventura filed a lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs, director Alexandria Stapleton and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson got to work. Together, the pair created Netflix’s “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” a four-part docuseries that not only dives into the many allegations of abuse, racketeering and sexual assault leveled against Combs, but is also a closer look at his rise, from the creation of Bad Boy to the absolute power he began to have over those around him.
Threaded through the four episodes is video footage of Combs, beginning six days before his 2024 arrest and indictment. While under federal investigation, Combs had someone follow him with a camera, capturing his conversations with lawyers, his increasing agitation about the mounting accusations and his mingling with fans. The videos were “obtained legally,” Stapleton tells Variety, despite Combs’ team slamming the previously unseen footage, calling it “unfair and illegal.” (See the full statement from his team here.)
Stapleton later said in a statement: “We moved heaven and earth to keep the filmmaker’s identity confidential. One thing about Sean Combs is that he’s always filming himself, and it’s been an obsession throughout the decades. We also reached out to Sean Combs’ legal team for an interview and comment multiple times, but did not hear back.”
In July 2025, Combs was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and is currently serving a 50-month sentence in federal prison.
In a conversation with Variety, Jackson and Stapleton detail the process of making the docuseries, share what they wish they could ask Diddy had they been able to interview him — and what they think happens after his sentence is up.
Let’s start with the timeline — when did you start working on this?
Alexandria Stapleton: We’ve been working on this for a very long time. The development started the day that Cassie’s suit dropped. The great thing about working with Netflix and the choice to work with them was really built on that there was no mandate of a timeline. We started this series before there was even an indictment. So we had to process the backstory, but then also be very observant and responsible with what was playing out publicly with his trial, and subsequent sentencing.
Obviously, one of the most shocking parts in the doc is the video, threaded through all four episodes, showing Diddy in the days leading up to his arrest. At what point did you obtain that, and what can you say about how?
Stapleton: There’s no date I can give. It was obtained legally. We were not present when it was being shot, so all I can say is after that.
I have to say, our team was really shocked by it, and I said, “Only 50 would have this!”
Jackson laughs, does not respond.
50, you weren’t in the doc on camera. Was that ever an option for you?
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson: I’m the only person who didn’t get a chance! I didn’t say anything because Alex was in control of what was going on.
The Notorious B.I.G. and Sean Combs
Courtesy of Netflix
The series very much argues that Diddy had something to do with both Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur’s deaths. How did you legally get that across the finish line?
Jackson: Well, you’ve got Keffe D [Duane Keith Davis] right there in California awaiting trial and saying it so openly. Nevada feels like what he’s saying is sufficient enough for them to try him on it. Just bringing those points up doesn’t bring up anything that doesn’t already exist.
Stapleton: This has been a very long path of Keffe D being very vocal. He even wrote a book. And the tapes — we’re not making this up. This isn’t stuff that’s put in the series because we heard it, and got another person to vet it: It’s through law enforcement, agencies, recordings and materials, including the work that [Detective] Greg Kading has done on this investigation. So, we’ll see how everything plays out next year. But it definitely was important to have this conversation and to have all of the context in it, because so often when we talk about Biggie and Tupac, it’s just the East Coast vs. West Coast thing has been distilled down to just these two guys, and there were no other external forces that were a part of their tragic deaths.
Were you surprised by the Diddy verdict?
Jackson: I was surprised by the choices. It was pretty intense the way they came for him — with three different agencies at one time. I haven’t seen them do that, even for Mafia bosses. That’s why I called him “the gay Teflon Don.” I said that only because he’s the only person who’s incarcerated at the current moment for paying male sex workers to travel across state lines. I think they did overcharge him — charges versus what he’s actually found guilty of.
He didn’t do things that I thought he would, like file for bankruptcy right away, because the system itself is going to eat him alive. It’s going to be the lawyers who take the money from him. He’s not going to have anything by the time he touches down. You’ll see in the process just how expensive it is to have eight attorneys work on a case like that. You don’t blink when you do it, because you know your life is online. If you don’t win the case, you don’t have the results; it’s over. Period. And you could tell that the lawyers convinced him that he would be home on that date. That’s what the tears are about [in the scene] in that chair. He already booked speaking engagements, like he would be out and running around, doing different things. They really convinced him he was coming home.
Courtesy of Netflix
Aubrey O’Day’s interview was extremely heartbreaking, her reading a claim of what happened to her — but doesn’t know what is true. Can you talk about that interview?
Stapleton: I started communicating with her pretty early on in the process, and she really wanted to find the right place to share this story. So much of what was going on was just shock and awe, headlines of people dropping all kinds of crazy, salacious things. And I think Aubrey knew that this could look really bad for him or look really bad for her. She wanted the freedom to be able to talk about how conflicted she felt. She wanted the ability to know that she could be very honest, that she’d looked up to this guy. I don’t know how to feel about this. I don’t know how to process it. I don’t know if it’s real. She decided to share that story with us. And I think it’s really wild, and part of the gray area. It’s so complicated in matters of sexual assault. Unfortunately, it’s not a black and white situation. It can be very complex.
Dawn Richard, who sued Diddy for sexual battery and assault, was a big part of the doc. Did you reach out to have her be a part of it?
Stapleton: We did. We reached out to her and did not hear back.
50, some people think you’re producing this because you’ve had this ongoing beef with Diddy. How do you feel about that?
Jackson: Well, they characterize me being vocal about him saying things that were inappropriate around me as us having a beef, but we’ve never done anything to each other. I’ve hired his sons to work in my scripted programs. I don’t have anything against him or his family. I’m a heterosexual man, I don’t like what a man talks to me like I’m a woman. He’s asking to take me shopping; that’s something that maybe a man does as a gesture to a female that he likes, and that made me uncomfortable. I was vocal about not wanting to participate in his parties or be around them. So they felt like this has been going on for 20 years, but what 20-year beef has no attacks from either side?
Minus your comments on social media.
Jackson: If you look at the things that you hear, other people’s accounts of his behaviors, it doesn’t match up with beef. It matches up with us having a disagreement. He says inappropriate things in front of people all the time, and they excuse it, because he is who he is and his financial position. They look up to him.
Since the arrest happened, people started bringing up celebrity names, wondering who would be exposed. You show a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio at a white party, but there weren’t any exposé-type interviews. Did you have a list of dream people whom you tried to interview?
Jackson: Every party wasn’t a freakoff.
Stapleton: Yeah, the pictures of the white parties, there’s no judgment made.
Jackson: That would be maybe the party happening after the party or after people decide to leave. Those people in the pictures, they’re not all guilty of the same behavior. But they’re not saying anything out of the gate, because they just go, “If I’m not in it, I don’t have to say anything about it.” It does confuse the public about what the culture is comfortable with, because when they don’t hear anything, they say, “Well, that’s what they do.” They, as a collective. And it’s not true. It’s not everybody’s behavior.
Stapleton: We only had four hours, and this started with a story about Sean Combs. To go off into these different pockets of discovery, potentially, that’s another film on the horizon for another film team. We went after every lead that we could, but there was so much work that was necessary to do to give context to the allegations of Sean Combs. It’s such an anomaly, in a way, that you would have one man who has currently over 80 civil suits still pending against him, many of which are rooted in sexual assault claims. 50 and I have always said that this doesn’t necessarily feel like this is the marker of the end of the story. It feels like the end of a chapter, potentially. There’s a lot more that I think will probably come to light as a result of the civil process.
Is there a possibility that you could make a second part of this after he’s out?
Stapleton: I think this story continues. I don’t know if I only want to make these documentaries, but I do think that one thing that did not happen, did not materialize was an interview with him. It’d be very interesting to hear what he says to all of this. What are some of the holes that he can fill with his own backstory?
50, would you want to do more?
Jackson: Sure — I think we missed a lot of stuff.
What did you not get to tell?
Jackson: What happens is that people change when they’re extremely loyal to their comfort. I think when they see that they won’t be receiving the financial support that they were receiving, they’ll look for ways to create new revenue and new finances to come through. They just want to do it with whoever will make it most lucrative and effective… When you get charged with RICO, conspiracy, you don’t see people walk out of there with two years. That’s a win. He won that case completely. But when you see that, it also signals to the people who were around it that they no longer have a gravy train. So they jump ship, and things start to happen, and you start to see different things from different people. I think that’ll be even clearer as he comes back and is not able to continue with the lifestyle the same way. Two years, I can’t imagine the upkeep on these things — expenses of the lifestyle after two years without income, while also having to spend on the legal defenses.
When he gets out, do you think he could have a career again in the music industry?
Jackson: He might be able to produce artists.
You think people would work with him again?
Jackson: New people. New artists would work with him in the studio, but he won’t be able to visibly be out as a brand because people won’t be in support of that.
Kirk Burrowes in “Sean Combs: The Reckoning”
Courtesy of Netflix
If you were able to interview Sean Combs, what questions would be at the top of your list?
Jackson: Was it worth it, playboy?
Stapleton: I’d want to know a lot more about his childhood, teenage and college years, kind of the genesis. I’d have more questions about some of the characters that we weren’t able to bring to life completely, like Corey Jacobs and Wolf, some of these guys from Mount Vernon that were part of his crew that I think were really instrumental in the creation of his empire, and what their roles were, and his opinion on that.
That is part of the bigger theme in this documentary — what gets excused when you’re in a position of power. Alex, was that something you wanted to hone in on from the start?
Stapleton: Yes, the uber takeaway that I hope people get from the series is that maybe we stop looking at Sean Combs, and we start looking at ourselves, our society, our community and what we allow people that we idolize to get away with. I think that over the decades — Kirk Burrowes states it best — there’s a pattern to a lot of the behaviors. We always manage to make excuses for it. Even with Cassie’s tape from the Intercontinental dropping. It was really fascinating as a filmmaker. We’re watching how that’s being treated by the public. At first, there was a shocking reaction. Then the commentary started to change. It was, “What was said before? What was she doing that may have warranted him to hit her? What were they involved in?” It’s crazy what we, as a collective, start to say to justify things that we see with our own two eyes.
What did you learn about yourselves during this process?
Jackson: That I’m almost the polar opposite of these people. I’m not interested in a woman not remembering the sexual experience. It’s the most confusing shit ever to me.
Stapleton: I used to go by “Alex,” and after I made Reggie Jackson doc, I always use “Alexandria,” because I want young female filmmakers, young girls, to know that we can make stories like this. We deserve to make stories like this and that’s really important to me.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
