Sean “Diddy” Combs has accused a man who previously sued him for sexual assault of selling stolen video footage to Netflix for 50 Cent’s documentary Sean Combs: The Reckoning.
Combs, 56, filed a countersuit against Rodney Jones on Tuesday, August 11, alleging that the videographer and producer used his access to the musician during a trip to St. Barts in 2022 to steal documentary footage, according to documents obtained by Us. (TMZ first reported the news.)
“Mr. Jones was supposed to stay in the staff villa. However, after first coming to the yacht, Mr. Jones did not want to leave,” the lawsuit reads. “There was no room available for Mr. Jones on the yacht — but that did not deter Mr. Jones, who preferred to sleep on couches on the yacht to remain in the vicinity of Mr. Combs.”
Per Diddy’s lawyers, Jones, 38, was one of multiple videographers on the 2022 trip but they suspect that he secretly stole another cameraman’s footage and then took steps to conceal his alleged theft. (The footage was being shot for a biographical project on Diddy’s life, per his legal team.)
“Mr. Jones devised a plan to exploit the trust provided to him by Mr. Combs during the St. Barths trip and to obtain leverage over Mr. Combs by stealing valuable footage that Mr. Combs and the videographers were collecting for Mr. Combs’s documentary,” the suit alleged.
The mogul contends that Jones later illegally sold that footage to Netflix to be used in 50 Cent’s December 2025 four-part docuseries Sean Combs: The Reckoning.
“Mr. Combs did not become aware of Mr. Jones’s theft until December 2025 when it came to his attention that the Stolen Footage — footage Mr. Combs had created for use in his own forthcoming documentary — had been published by Netflix in a competing documentary,” the mogul’s attorneys insisted.
At the time of Sean Combs: The Reckoning’s release, a Netflix spokesperson denied Diddy’s complaints that it was “fundamentally unfair, and illegal” to air the allegedly stolen footage.
“The claims being made about Sean Combs: The Reckoning are false. The project has no ties to any past conversations between Sean Combs and Netflix,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Us on December 2, 2025. “The footage of Combs leading up to his indictment and arrest were legally obtained. This is not a hit piece or an act of retribution. Curtis Jackson [50 Cent] is an executive producer but does not have creative control. No one was paid to participate.”
Netflix also pointed to previous comments from Sean Combs: The Reckoning director Alexandria Stapleton about how the company obtained unreleased documentary footage of Combs.
“It came to us, we obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights,” she said. “We moved heaven and earth to keep the filmmaker’s identity confidential. One thing about Sean Combs is that he’s always filming himself, and it’s been an obsession throughout the decades. We also reached out to Sean Combs’ legal team for an interview and comment multiple times, but did not hear back.”
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In addition to the dispute over video footage, Diddy’s lawsuit against Jones accuses the producer of defaming him by repeating sexual assault allegations during an interview for Sean Combs: The Reckoning.
“Mr. Jones’s statements in his Netflix interview accusing Mr. Combs of directing him to procure sex workers are false and Mr. Jones knew they were false. … Mr. Jones also falsely claimed in his interview in the Competing Documentary that he was given drugs by Mr. Combs without his knowledge,” Diddy’s countersuit read.
Jones accused Diddy of sexual assault and sexual harassment, as well as drugging and threatening him, for over a year between September 2022 and November 2023 in a lawsuit filed in February 2024. He also named Diddy’s former chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, his son Justin Combs and his company, Combs Global, as defendants.
However, New York federal judge J. Paul Oetken dismissed five of nine claims in Jones’ lawsuit in March 2025, including a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) allegation related to the producer’s insistence that he was not paid properly for work on Diddy’s 2023 record, The Love Album: Off the Grid.
“[Combs’] alleged refusal to honor the contract with Jones is not itself a RICO predicate act, even if the contract breach resulted from Jones’s refusal to participate in Combs’ alleged racketeering scheme,” the judge wrote at the time.
Separate claims for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract were also dismissed. Diddy’s company, Combs Global, was removed from a claim of violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). (The judge ruled that trafficking, sexual assault and premises liability claims against Diddy and Khorram could proceed.)
Diddy’s former attorney, Shawn Holley, previously dismissed the merits of Jones’ lawsuit when it was originally filed.
“Lil Rod [Jones] is nothing more than a liar who filed a $30 million lawsuit, shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday,” Holley said in a statement to Us in 2024. “His reckless name-dropping about events that are pure fiction and simply did not happen is nothing more than a transparent attempt to garner headlines.”
Khorram denied Jones’ allegations that she was “the Ghislaine Maxwell to Sean Combs’ Jeffrey Epstein,” saying in a statement in March 2025, “For months, horrific accusations have been made about me in various lawsuits regarding my former boss.”
“These false allegations of my involvement are causing irreparable and incalculable damage to my reputation and the emotional well-being of myself and my family,” Khorram added to Rolling Stone. “I have never condoned or aided and abetted the sexual assault of anyone. Nor have I ever drugged anyone.”
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Us has reached out to representatives for Jones and Diddy for comment.
In October 2025, Diddy was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison after being found guilty on two charges of transportation to engage in prostitution. He is scheduled to be released from prison on January 24, 2028. (Diddy denied all allegations of wrongdoing from his criminal trial. His conviction was based on separate allegations from those in Jones’ lawsuit.)
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
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