Somewhere Between Pettiness And Journalism Lies Netflix’s Diddy Documentary

There's a new documentary about Diddy in the wake of his recent criminal trial, in which he was sentenced to 50 months in prison after being found guilty of procuring sex workers. The documentary, titled Sean Combs: The Reckoning, has gotten a lot of buzz due to the fact that it was executive produced by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who has had a longstanding public beef with Diddy. How we get to a point where a documentary account of Diddy's criminal behavior gets produced by fellow rap mogul 50 Cent is quite convoluted. There's women involved, business interests, and competition mixed in, and maybe just a hint of gay panic.

Regardless, 50 Cent has been open about his personal disdain of Diddy for years. That animus, and 50 Cent's well-known trollishness, makes it easy to dismiss the documentary out of hand as a hit job from one rapper against another. But is that actually the case? The Reckoning is a four-part docuseries on the ascent and fall of Diddy and his empire, and all the women and men who were abused and discarded in the process. The actual filmmaker, Alex Stapleton, talks to a number of people who were around during Diddy's rise and fall, some with real grievances and some with just a lot of contempt. While there's plenty of footage and verifiable facts to support the doc's dark portrait of Diddy, it's a work full of conjecture and insinuations. Did Diddy pay the Crips to kill Suge Knight and 2Pac? Did he play a role in Notorious B.I.G.'s murder? Did he make Biggie's estate pay for his own funeral? Was he abusing the mother of his own children? Did he kidnap his assistant so they could try to murder Kid Cudi? The doc doesn't prove any of it, but simply posing the questions in this format is suggestive. Listen to that music, he's evil!