Though there were numerous people interviewed about Sean “Diddy” Combs in Netflix’s new documentary, “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” one person’s confessional is sticking out amongst the rest: producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones. And now he’s sharing even more details about his time with Diddy.
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As we already told you, in March 2024, Lil Rod filed a bombshell sexual assault lawsuit against the Bad Boy producer in which he alleged several incidents of sexual assault, sexual harassment, grooming of homosexual sex, threatening, attempted drugging and more. In the aforementioned doc, he talked about his time working with Diddy for his 2023 project “The Love Album: Off the Grid” and rehashed the allegations.
Now, in a new interview with journalist Touré released on Monday, Jones is shedding new light on why he felt compelled to work with Diddy despite alleged excessive alcohol use and him waking up with a sore butt and foggy memory.
“In order to make it in this industry, you have to first be cosigned by someone like Puff. He[Lil Rod] said there’s a small number of gatekeepers in this thing,” Touré explained. “There’s 50 [Cent], he said, there’s Doctor Dre, there’s Jay-Z, there’s Puff–there’s a couple other people. He said as an up and coming producer or rapper, you gotta get cosigned by one of them to get the other artists to want to work with you. So he felt like he had to be in Puff’s circle to make it in the industry–and that meant going along with whatever Puff wanted.”
Touré went on to say that Lil Rod suggested that sometimes, the drinks they took were laced with other substances, which would explain why he couldn’t recall how he got in a bed with another woman–and sometimes Diddy himself–laying next to him.
“But again, he [Lil Rod] felt trapped. The people around Puff are always saying they felt trapped. He’s trying to get into the music business, he’s working with Puff and he’s done all these songs on the ‘Love Album’–hasn’t been paid, hasn’t gotten any credit,” Touré said. “So he’s like ‘I gotta stick it out, just to get that thing–just to get in the door. Once I get my foot in the door, I can say no to things. But I’m trying to get in.’”
And therein lies the most disturbing undercurrent of this entire story: the fact Lil Rod felt like he had to endure allege exploitation both on a monetary and sexual level in order to gain a level of success. The fact that people could want something so bad that they’d unknowingly put themselves in environments that could potentially harm them in an attempt to get better for themself is both sad and jarring. What makes it even worse? The feeling that you couldn’t get out of the trap and had to stay going along for the maltreatment out of fear, retaliation, professional blackballing or worse.
Now, to be clear, we’re not victim-blaming here. Because at the end of the day, alleged harm was perpetuated against Lil Rod. But there’s something to be said about what people will dismiss or shirk off so that they don’t rock the boat or mess up what they think they stand to gain if they do.
As TikTok user Daddy Dimepiece stated, though the details of alleged grooming from Diddy toward Lil Rod were so unsettling, he had to turn the lights on in his room–he couldn’t help but call out how people’s quest for fame can skew their perception and instincts to get up out of a bad situation.
“Lil Rod was more focused on getting famous that he’d rather stay around Diddy after he just shot somebody in the bathroom and acted like nothing happened,” he said, referencing another incident Lil Rod detailed in the documentary. (For context, Lil Rod alleged he saw Diddy and his son Justin Combs walk in the bathroom with another man, heard two gunshots go off and then Diddy and his son walked out. When Lil Rod walked in after the fact, he saw a man bleeding out in there and called an ambulance.)
“That was the first sign that he [Lil Rod] should’ve left Diddy alone, but he wanted to stay around,” Dimepiece stated.
As you might expect, once Touré’s clip and even more people started dissecting Lil Rod’s experience with some people resorting towards putting all the blame on him and others putting it on Diddy.
“What’s crazy is people can see Aubrey [O’Day, former member of Danity Kane] as a victim but Lil Rod.. they refuse to see him as one,” wrote one user on TikTok.
“Puff denied so many talented people’s destiny. He keep amazing music from the world. He should never walk free,” said another.
“I feel so much empathy for him,” one other user wrote.
Added another: “He was brave 2 tell everything & I have seen ppl making fun of him! So sad.”
“Puff is the Harvey Weinstein of music,” another person said.
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