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Sean “Diddy” Combs saw his $100 million defamation lawsuit against NBC and Peacock over the 2025 documentary, Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy, dismissed by a New York judge after the network argued that the now-imprisoned rap mogul had admitted in court that he was the one responsible for ruining his career — and that damage was done well before the documentary was released.

New York Supreme Court Judge Phaedra F. Perry-Bond ruled that the case brought by the hip-hop icon, who was indicted in September 2024 on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and is now confined to a New Jersey federal prison, should be dismissed. Combs’ 50-month federal prison sentence came three months after his lengthy trial in New York last summer ended in a split verdict and, notably for the defamation case’s verdict, over a year after a federal indictment dragged his documented domestic abuse, confirmed drug abuse, and unconventional sexual proclivities into public view. Lawyers for the network are celebrating the decision as a victory for freedom of speech.

“This is an important ruling that protects filmmakers and journalists by dismissing this meritless complaint, as barred by New York law and the First Amendment,” Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., an attorney who represented NBC, told The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday.

Combs’ February 2025 complaint said that the documentary portrays him as guilty of “serial murder, sexual assault and trafficking of minors, and extortion — knowing that there is not a shred of evidence to support them.” The legal complaint also cited THR‘s interview with doc producer Ari Mark as evidence of a rush to get it on the platform; Mark had told THR that, “It’s really competitive, and I think that is why it wasn’t enough to be fast, it was also necessary to be distinct. There’s no time, and this was an extremely fast turnaround.”

Yet it was the memorable words Combs uttered when he finally stood to speak at his dramatic October sentencing that became central to NBC’s motion to dismiss his defamation case, which hinged on damage to his reputation that he claimed was caused by the documentary’s content. Months after the split verdict was read, Combs stood up in the federal courtroom in lower Manhattan to speak for himself in front of the judge, his entire family, the press corps, and everyone in the gallery.

“Because of my decisions, I lost my freedom,” Combs, who by that point had also become the subject of more than 25 lawsuits related to accusations of sexual misconduct, told the judge. “I lost my career. I totally destroyed my reputation.”

NBC argued that such an admission negates the rapper’s claims that the documentary caused him irreparable reputational damage; this cannot be the case, network attorneys argued, given his own courtroom admission.

In November, Combs’ publicist, Juda Engelmayer, said in a statement that NBC’s argument “takes a single remark out of its legal context” and that it has “no relevance to whether the documentary met basic standards of accuracy and responsibility.”

But this week, Judge Perry-Bond agreed with the network’s assessment and granted dismissal of the defamation case, saying that Combs’ suit failed to “establish a substantial basis regarding reputational harm.” The judge also noted in her ruling that the “carefully curated and nuanced [documentary] discloses interviewees’ biases and includes counterstatements to the allegedly defamatory statements.”

The defamation lawsuit highlighted two elements of Making of a Bad Boy that Combs stated were “deeply distressing, offensive, reckless, and malicious”: the inclusion of allusions to conspiracy theories that he was involved in the death of his ex-partner, Kim Porter, with whom he had three children, and the murder of the Notorious B.I.G., his early-career discovery whose death at 24 became a flashpoint that catapulted him to fame.

Porter died suddenly in 2018 after days of flu-like symptoms; the coroner eventually ruled her cause of death was lobar pneumonia. Combs also adopted Quincy Brown, Porter’s son with New Jack Swing artist Al B. Sure!, who appears in the Peacock documentary in an interview, and at one point refers to Porter’s death as a “murder,” then pauses to ask, “Am I supposed to say ‘allegedly’?” Al B. Sure! has implied that he has information pointing to Combs as responsible for Porter’s death. That claim, along with a book purported to be written by Porter that briefly appeared on Amazon, fueled the conspiracy theory, which picked up steam after Combs’ indictment.

Rumors of Combs’ involvement in the Notorious B.I.G.’s 1997 murder have clouded his reputation for decades. Most pop music fans first encountered Combs as Puff Daddy — a moniker he carried through the late ’90s and early 2000s — most notably through “I’ll Be Missing You,” his tribute duet with Faith Evans, the late rapper’s widow, which was quickly released after his murder. Combs’ complaint also says NBC’s documentary includes an interview with Combs’ former bodyguard Gene Deal, who suggested the mogul “could have” had something to do with the murder.

“In making and broadcasting these falsehoods, among others,” the filing read, “defendants seek only to capitalize on the public’s appetite for scandal without any regard for the truth and at the expense of Mr. Combs’s right to a fair trial.”

Engelmayer, Combs’ PR representative, told THR that the rap mogul’s team is offering no comment on the decision “at this time.”

Combs’ legal team is currently working on the appeal of the two counts for which the jury found him guilty last summer. The federal trial resulted in him being found in violation of the Mann Act, which forbids transportation for prostitution.