
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-topline">Topline</h2>



<p>Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs was arrested Monday and pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges including sex trafficking and racketeering and will remain in custody until his trial, provoking a range of sharp reactions from rapper and longtime critic 50 Cent, and other celebrities in the hip-hop and R&amp;B communities.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-facts">Key Facts</h2>



<p>Combs was indicted on charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, cause or coercion and transportation to engage in prostitution, with prosecutors alleging he engaged in physical abuse, coercion and obstruction of justice when organizing sex parties he described as “Freak Offs.”</p>



<p>50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson III,&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/50cent/status/1836075843371618663" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">tweeted</a>&nbsp;a photo of him and actor Drew Barrymore captioned, “Here I am keeping good company with [Barrymore] and I don’t have 1,000 bottles of lube at the house,” referencing investigators’ findings while they&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2024/03/25/feds-search-sean-diddy-combs-la-and-miami-homes-reports-say/">searched Combs’ homes</a>&nbsp;in March, when law enforcement recovered more than 1,000 bottles of baby oil and lubricant, according to Combs’ indictment.</p>



<p>Radio host Charlamagne Tha God said during a Monday segment on “The Breakfast Club” if Combs is convicted of racketeering and sex trafficking “<a href="https://youtu.be/IykOj8rhUgQ?si=bT3VlGDQBNogiVIp&amp;t=390" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">there will be others involved</a>” who will be “probably going to jail.”</p>



<p>Singer Audrey O’Day, who has been&nbsp;<a href="https://people.com/aubrey-oday-reacts-sean-diddy-combs-home-raids-8620791" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">outspoken about Combs</a>, said Monday she felt “<a href="https://x.com/AubreyODay/status/1835881050347843665" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">validated</a>” after the rapper’s arrest, following up the tweet by saying she “chose to speak to people who could move justice in the way I needed to see it.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-50-cent-s-yearslong-feud-with-combs">50 Cent’s Yearslong Feud With Combs</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2024/03/27/50-cent-says-diddy-done-after-feds-raid-sean-combs-homes-but-their-beef-has-lasted-decades/">50 Cent has long criticized Combs</a>&nbsp;in the leadup to his indictment. In May, 50 Cent reshared a post from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office condemning a video showing Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016. The attack took place beyond the statute of limitations, provoking 50 Cent to say the office released the video knowing “they can’t charge him with what we saw, but they know we can’t [unsee]</p>



<p>what we saw.” 50 Cent also chimed in on the raids conducted on Combs’ residences, saying in a tweet “they don’t come like that unless they got a case.” 50 Cent put out a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.digitalspy.com/music/a36761/50-cent-attacks-p-diddy-in-new-song/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">diss track</a>&nbsp;against Combs in 2006 and announced last year his production company would produce a documentary about the numerous allegations against Combs titled, “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/07/50-cent-says-hell-make-documentary-about-diddys-sexual-assault-allegations-as-fourth-woman-comes-forward/?sh=aec0bbb18728">Diddy Do It?</a>”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tangent">Tangent</h2>



<p>O’Day is a former member of R&amp;B girl group Danity Kane, which was signed to Combs’ record label, Bad Boy Records, in 2005.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-key-background">Key Background</h2>



<p>Combs was denied bail Tuesday and will remain in federal custody until his trial over the three charges, which carry a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors accused Combs of engaging in “verbal, emotional, sexual and physical abuse” and manipulating women into engaging in “extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers.” The charges against Combs follow&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/09/17/sean-diddy-combs-arrested-on-racketeering-sex-trafficking-charges-a-complete-timeline-of-allegations-against-him/">months-worth of allegations</a>&nbsp;made by women against the rapper accusing him of rape, sexual assault and abuse dating back several years. The allegations, which mainly materialized from late last year to this summer, were denied by Combs’ attorneys, who told Forbes some of the lawsuits against the rapper were&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/britneynguyen/2023/11/24/rapper-sean-diddy-combs-accused-of-rape-and-sexual-assault-in-two-new-separate-lawsuits/?sh=359589f26558">money grabs</a>, “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/11/16/rapper-sean-diddy-combs-accused-of-rape-and-sex-trafficking-by-singer-and-former-partner/?sh=2d57663bb351">baseless</a>” or “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/12/06/sean-combs-accused-of-sexually-assaulting-17-year-old-in-latest-lawsuit/?sh=4e745e308e92">sickening</a>.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-further-reading">Further Reading</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/09/17/sean-diddy-combs-pleads-not-guilty-t0-sex-trafficking-racketeering-charges/">Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Denied Bail After Pleading Not Guilty To Sex Trafficking, Racketeering Charges</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>



<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/09/17/sean-diddy-combs-arrested-on-racketeering-sex-trafficking-charges-a-complete-timeline-of-allegations-against-him/">Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Arrested On Racketeering, Sex Trafficking Charges: A Complete Timeline Of Allegations Against Him</a>&nbsp;(Forbes)</p>


Sean “Diddy” Combs Fulfills $1 Million Pledge To Howard University At Howard Homecoming – Yardfest

‘Diddy’ Arrest: 50 Cent, Charlamagne Tha God And Other Celebrities React


<p>Forethought CEO Deon Nicholas knows you’re probably sick of hearing about chatbots. Once promised to provide human-like customer service at much faster speeds, the software’s lost much of its hype through head-scratching, rote answers and dead ends that can make you dream of speaking to a human being again.</p>



<p>At his three-year-old startup, however, Nicholas says that the tools are built differently from the ground up. These ones, he insists, really help. The difference: real artificial intelligence software versus basic automated decision trees. “We know you’ve been burned,” Nicholas says. “But that wasn’t artificial intelligence. It was a lot more artificial than it was intelligent.”</p>



<p>San Francisco-based business Forethought offers a tool called Agatha that it believes can actually work, with a product for service agents, triaging support tickets and resolving them on its own using natural language processing and AI software that gets smarter at anticipating solutions over time. The company says it’s resolved more than 500,000 claims automatically so far.</p>



<p>Investors have noticed: Forethought announced on Wednesday it’s raised $17 million in a Series B funding round from previous investor NEA, Sound Ventures, Neo, Geodesic Capital and Operator Collective, alongside high-leverage individuals including Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith, Sean “Diddy” Combs and LL Cool J.</p>



<p>A former engineer at Dropbox and Pure Storage, Nicholas launched Forethought with ex-LinkedIn engineer Sami Ghoche in 2018, both appearing on the Forbes 30 Under 30&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/pictures/5be5b8d54bbe6f78bda781d9/deon-nicholas-25-l-sami-g/#166c47d95c36">list</a>&nbsp;for enterprise tech&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/igorbosilkovski/2018/11/13/30-under-30-in-enterprise-tech-drone-school-ai-accountability-and-buying-cars-from-home/#7f09407a55c9">for the following year</a>&nbsp;at the ages of 25 and 24. (Three other team members are also alumni of the list.) Later that year, Forethought won TechCrunch’s Disrupt Battlefield startup contest before&nbsp;<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/forethought-snares-9m-series-a-in-wake-of-battlefield-win/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raising</a>&nbsp;a $9 million Series A led by NEA.</p>



<p>What has made Forethought resonate with customers—nameable ones are mostly in tech, too, like Carta, Gusto and Masterclass—is software that plugs into a company’s sales and customer service software to learn how past issues were resolved and better predict what an individual ticket might be about. That can lead to much higher accuracy and faster resolution times, Nicholas says: “Agatha is able to figure out when new problems start to arise and how to respond to them by listening to how [human] agents are responding.”</p>



<p>At Sound Ventures, investor and actor Ashton Kutcher says he was initially skeptical about backing another customer service tool. Digging in, Kutcher says the Sound team was impressed by how Forethought’s tech really worked. “It’s a headache so many of our portfolio companies have, because with everything becoming 24/7, customer service has to be 24/7. And it gets more complicated when everything is on-demand and everything is at your fingertips,” Kutcher says.</p>



<p>“There’s a lot of folks who are working on different AI things, but no one really has a front door to it,” adds Qualtrics’ Smith. “Watching what Deon is doing, they are making every organization way more intelligent.”</p>



<p>Term sheets for Forethought’s Series B arrived just as the killing of George Floyd set off Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S. That made closing the round “a tough time” for Nicholas, a still too-rare Black startup founder in tech. Over the following weeks, Kutcher and Forethought’s investor base worked to bring in prominent Black entrepreneurs to join the round, leading to the participation of Combs and LL Cool J.</p>



<p>“For me, it is really important to tell a new story, change the face of what success looks like,” Nicholas says. “I’ve always been a builder, so if that’s what I can do for the world, then I’m going to do that and make waves while I’m at it.”</p>



<p><em>-By Alex Konrad, Forbes Staff</em></p>


Tag: P Diddy

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

‘Diddy’ Arrest: 50 Cent, Charlamagne Tha God And Other Celebrities React

This Startup Raised $17 Million From Investors Like Ashton Kutcher And Diddy To Take On Customer Service With AI