Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs has filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against music manager Courtney Burgess, her lawyer Ariel Mitchell, and Nexstar Media Inc., the parent company of NewsNation.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that Burgess made false accusations against Combs, which Mitchell supported and NewsNation reported.

In late 2024, after testifying before a grand jury, Burgess appeared on NewsNation and stated that she had almost a dozen flash drives containing explicit videos allegedly linked to Combs. She claimed the videos showed male and female celebrities, as well as minors, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

Mitchell supported her client’s accusations during interviews, claiming that one of the men in the footage is “more high-profile” than Combs. “I can verify that it exists — that it’s real and that the other person in the video is very visible,” she stated.

In his complaint, Combs refutes these claims, alleging that Burgess “falsely asserted he possessed videos of [Combs] engaged in the sexual assault of celebrities and minors.”

The lawsuit claims that Burgess repeatedly shared these accusations with various media outlets, including NewsNation, which, according to the complaint, irresponsibly presented the false claims as if they were true.

It also accuses Mitchell of either knowingly spreading false information or being careless by not checking whether her client’s claims were true.

“Because no such tapes exist, and because Mitchell never saw any video depicting [Combs] sexually abusing anyone, her statements were either blatant falsehoods or the result of a reckless disregard for the truth,” the filing read.

According to the lawsuit, the actions of Burgess, Mitchell, and NewsNation have caused “profound reputational and economic harm” to Combs, as well as prejudiced his ability to receive a fair trial.