Brendan Paul, a former assistant for Sean “Diddy” Combs, took the stand in the rapper’s sex trafficking trial on Friday, June 20, and claimed part of his duties involved procuring drugs for his boss.
Paul, who worked for the mogul from late 2022 to March 2024, alleged that he was asked to buy thousands of dollars worth of drugs during his employment, including marijuana, cocaine, pink cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine. While he claimed he “rarely” saw Diddy, now 55, use drugs, he testified that he bought about $4,200 worth of marijuana for him every two months.
Following his September 2024 arrest, Diddy is facing charges of sex trafficking, transportation to engage in prostitution and racketeering conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and denied all the allegations against him.
During his testimony on Friday, Paul further claimed that he was also asked to try drugs for Diddy, including once in front of his boss. On that occasion, he alleged, he took 2C at a Coachella afterparty to “check if it was good.” Paul recalled, “I said yes and then I kept working.”
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Paul stopped working for Diddy in March 2024 after he was arrested at a Miami airport for cocaine possession. He claimed he found it in Diddy’s room before they left for a Combs family trip to the Bahamas, but Paul forgot to remove it from his bag before arriving at the airport. During cross-examination, Paul told defense attorney Brian Steel that neither Diddy nor anyone else on his team asked him to take the cocaine in his bag.
While Paul said the charges against him were dropped, he said he hasn’t spoken to Diddy since his arrest. He also claimed he didn’t tell authorities where he got the cocaine because of “loyalty.”
When he first started working for Diddy, Paul said he helped formulate his diet and workout plans because of his past as a college basketball player (he played two seasons at Syracuse University). As other former Diddy assistants have testified, however, he said he would sometimes work days at a time with no sleep and would be fired for minor reasons and then hired back with no acknowledgement of the previous termination. To stay awake, he said he would take “prescription Adderall” and on “rare, rare” occasions use cocaine.
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At one point, Paul claimed, Diddy said he wanted his employees to “move like Seal Team Six,” the U.S. Navy special operations group that ultimately killed Osama Bin Laden. He also alleged that another former assistant warned him that the job would be extremely demanding. “Get in to get out,” the other assistant allegedly said. “If you have a girlfriend, break up with her. And you’ll never see your family.”
When asked during redirect examination how he feels about Diddy today, Paul replied, “It’s complicated.”
Diddy’s trial began in May and is expected to continue through early July.
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“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement following his arrest last year. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Since his arrest, Diddy has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His four requests for bail were denied by Judge Arun Subramanian.
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 experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support. If you or someone you know is a human trafficking victim, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
