A former sex worker allegedly victimized by Sean “Diddy” Combs is suing Netflix and 50 Cent over his portrayal in the docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning, claiming the film “distorted” his story with selective editing.
Clayton Howard, a sex worker allegedly hired by Combs for “freak off” sex parties with Cassie Ventura, offers some of the most disturbing accounts in the Netflix series, a six-part doc produced by 50 Cent and released in December that’s earned more than 51 million views.
But in a new lawsuit obtained and first reported by Billboard, Howard says the show made a “calculated misrepresentation” of his story – namely, by painting Ventura as a fellow victim when Howard says she was really an accomplice to Diddy’s alleged abuse.
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“Defendants deliberately edited, distorted, and misrepresented plaintiff’s account to portray Cassie Ventura — plaintiff’s primary trafficker — as a victim, while omitting and suppressing plaintiff’s testimony that he was sex trafficked by Ventura, thereby inflicting severe harm upon plaintiff’s reputation,” Howard writes.
Those allegations echo claims that Howard already made in a lawsuit he filed against Ventura last summer, in which he claims he was “drugged, manipulated, and traumatized” by both Diddy and Cassie. That case remains pending. An attorney for Ventura didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
In the new lawsuit, Howard is focused on Netflix and 50 Cent — claiming they “fraudulently induced” him to participate in the documentary by promising that a “complete and truthful account would be told,” then violated that agreement with the final cut.
“This calculated misrepresentation was done in furtherance of defendant Curtis Jackson’s personal and business vendetta against Sean Combs and to create a commercially profitable narrative that silenced a documented trafficking victim to protect a documented trafficker,” Howard writes.
Howard’s case was initially filed last month in New York state court; on Thursday, attorneys for Netflix and the other defendants moved to transfer it to federal court. Reps for 50 Cent did not return requests for comment; a spokesperson for Netflix declined to comment.
Released on Netflix on Dec. 2, Reckoning tells the story of Diddy’s early life and rise to fame before diving into his many alleged misdeeds, some of which led to bombshell 2024 criminal charges and an eventual 4-year prison sentence in October. It was executive produced by 50 Cent, a longtime Combs nemesis who has publicly cheered his downfall.
Some of Reckoning’s most revealing moments depict Combs in the days leading up to his September 2024 arrest – footage that he apparently commissioned himself. It also features ugly allegations from a wide range of talking-head interviews, including alleged victims, former associates, and jurors from the trial.
Howard was one of them, describing in detail the freak offs at the center of the case – elaborate sex parties in which Combs allegedly hired male sex workers to have sex with Ventura and other women for his entertainment.
In technical terms, his lawsuit alleges fraudulent inducement, defamation and various other forms of legal wrongdoing. He’s seeking at least $20 million in damages.
He’s not the first to hire lawyers over Reckoning. Combs himself sent a cease-and-desist letter to Netflix seeking to block the movie’s release, claiming the behind-the-scenes footage of him had been illegally obtained. Though he threatened to sue over the series, he has not yet filed a lawsuit in court.
