Sean “Diddy” Combs’ mother, Janice Combs, has responded to the new Netflix docuseries about her son.
In a statement shared with Deadline, Janice said the four-part series released on December 2 contains “lies” and “inaccuracies” about Sean’s life.
“I am writing this statement to correct some of the lies presented in Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” she said. “These inaccuracies about Sean’s upbringing and family life were intentionally crafted to mislead viewers and damage our reputation.”
She specifically addressed an interview in the first episode that revisits the 1991 tragedy at a City College of New York charity basketball game promoted by Sean, during which nine people died in a stampede.
In the docuseries, Sean’s former friend and colleague, Kirk Burrowes, claims he witnessed Sean slap his mother that day an allegation Janice firmly rejects.
“The claims made by Mr. Kirk Burrows [sic] that my son slapped me while we were speaking after the tragic City College event on December 28, 1991, are completely false,” she stated.
She called the tragedy “a very sad day for all of us,” and accused Burrowes of exploiting it to advance “a failed and ongoing attempt to seize what was never his — Bad Boy Records.”
Janice added, “I am requesting that these distortions, falsehoods and misleading statements be publicly retracted.”
In the episode, Burrowes says he saw Janice question Sean about his career path following the tragedy and claims Sean responded by insulting and striking her.
A title card in the series notes that Sean, 56, did not respond to the filmmakers’ request for comment on the allegation that he harmed his mother.
The docuseries was released shortly after Combs’ federal convictions on two prostitution-related charges, for which he is serving a 50-month prison sentence. He also faces numerous civil lawsuits accusing him of sexual assault.
A day before the documentary debuted, Sean’s spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, criticized the project as a “shameful hit piece,” alleging that Netflix used “stolen footage” Combs had collected since his teens to tell his own story.
“It is fundamentally unfair and illegal for Netflix to misappropriate that work,” the spokesperson argued. He also called the involvement of producer Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson a longtime rival “an unnecessary and deeply personal affront.”
When asked about the specific claim that Combs slapped his mother, Engelmayer declined to respond directly.
“We’re not going to comment on individual claims in the documentary,” he said. “Many of the people featured have long-standing personal grievances, financial motives or credibility issues that have been well documented.”
He added that some allegations have already been addressed in court filings, while others have never surfaced in any legal setting “because they’re simply not true,” concluding that the project relies on a “one-sided narrative” lacking context, evidence or verification.
