While the Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial took place in the past six weeks in a federal hearing room in the lower Manhattan, the testimony of his former staff members and his friends revealed a lot about the hip-hop icon and the business tycoon, whose alleged dark life was not apparent in the midst of the sparkle. The ambitious and flashy match of pop culture was a manufacturer of kings in the rap game and the pop world, and then extended his career in fashion, on television and spirits in the past 30 years. At one point, he became so recognizable that he was invited to parody himself in a great studio film in 2010 – the comedy produced by Judd Apatow, Bring it to the Greek. While the testimony flock to his trial, some viewers with the advantages of the hindsight stress that the biggest role of Combs could have revealed more of his personal life than 17 years ago.
Combs is accused of supervising a criminal business whose members and partners have engaged in sexual traffic, forced labor, kidnapping, criminal fire, corruption and obstruction of justice among other crimes. He pleaded not guilty and denied all the charges against him.
Bring it to the Greek is a satire of the music industry about a young label director, played by Jonah Hill, then at the end, who is charged by his megalomaniac boss (Combs, in what was his biggest role of film) to collect a disturbed rock star played by the newcomer of the time, Russell Brand (this character appeared for the first time in the product Forget Sarah Marshall). A large comedy and semi-hit at the box office filmed at the time pre-#metoo, his humor did not age well. But there is now a second life as a relic examined from another era, with the auto-parody performance of Combs which now seems much darker.
Here is an overview of some elements in Bring it to the Greek which are reflected or strangely similar to the accusations and evidence in the federal trial during Combs.
Employees abuse
Throughout the Combs trial, several former personal assistants sat on the stand of witnesses to discuss the abuses they say they suffered by the founder of Bad Boy Records. This included David James, the former personal assistant of Diddy from 2007 to 2009. On the stand of witnesses, James testified that during his interview for the post, he was told: “It is the kingdom of Mr. Combs” and “we are all there to serve him”. After a party where James said to the court that he had taken part of Combs drugs and danced a little wildly, the magnate told him that the images of him of the event would be preserved as a form of kompromat, in case Combs need to keep him in check. And this alleged vision of the world “Combs’ World” was put in context in the testimony of the longtime staff of Combs, Capricorn Clark, who told the court to have been kidnapped by the magnate and taken to Hollywood Hills in Hollywood Hills of Kid Cudi.
The character of Hill, Aaron, in Greek does not become a reluctant participant in a break -in. But throughout the film, Aaron certainly takes his share of abuses by Sergio Roma de Combs. In a staff meeting scene, the CEO of Combs releases an employee after his phone rings, making him call, then demanding that he throw the phone from his office. Discussing the difficult period of the music industry, the character does not show an empathy for his team.
“I have villas in Brazil, Tahiti, East Hampton, West Hampton, Sergio is fine.
In a subsequent scene, the PEP of Combres speaks to the character of Hill before he went to London who turns into a strange and dark abusive monologue on the “fucking spirit”.
“Have you ever been deceived in the mind?” The character of Boss de Combs asks Aaron de Hill: “I’m fucking you right now. You don’t feel my dick kiss your mind? You see? Is that art.
Encourage staff to mule drugs
Since his arrest in September, Combs has been accused of having asked several staff members of acquiring and distributing drugs, including his security team, which, according to testimony, would sometimes deposit Molly and other substances in hotels where “freestyards” took place. And George Kaplan, who worked as assistant from Diddy from 2013 to 2015, also described to be frequently threatened by Combres, and the position of witnesses to his trial, detailed disturbing scenes he saw, in particular assaults and cleaning the hotel room after “freak-off”. Kaplan said that the magnate sometimes asked him to deliver a “medicine kit” to his hotel room containing prescription pills and over -the -counter pain relievers and burning narcotics, including MDMA. He was granted to immunity to testify after having declared in court that he had planned to invoke his rights to the fifth amendment to avoid self-incrimination.
Well, the script for Bring it to the Greek Perhaps premonitory if the testimony under the oath of Kaplan is true, because the character of Combs expresses a relaxed attitude towards the smuggling of drugs when he encourages the record executive of Hill to do so as he climbs on a plane.
“It’s just a little heroine in your ass. No one will die. You know what you registered, ”he says.
Wild and debauched parts
In a major scene from comedy, Sergio de Combres lives it, visibly high on drugs, because the character is in a large part of the execution time, during a party which ends with fiery furniture, automatic gunshots and violent physical assaults. This representation is far from what we have seen from the famous White Combs festive galas, which from the 90s until 2009 were buttoned summer evenings in various chic world locations, with a list of guests that mixed the types of money with the stars of the world of hip-hop. But it seems, in certain aspects, a little more similar to “freak-offs”, as described during his trial by Cassie Ventura and another alleged victim using the pseudonym Jane Doe.
As the two women said to the jury during the Combs trial, the “freak-off” parties were sex marathons fueled by drugs where they would take several substances with combs and male workers. The “freak-offs” could last up to four days and on occasion, as the victims testified, will become violent. This was the case, according to Ventura’s testimony, just before she made a continuation at the Intercontinental Hotel in Los Angeles and was violently assaulted by Combs; The security images of Combs attacking Ventura in 2016 were disclosed in CNN for years later and became a centerpiece of the trial, having already been played for eight times for the jury.
The celebration scene in Bring it to the GreeK, strangely, ends with the character of enraged combits and chasing the two main characters of the comedy in a hallway of the hotel.
Sexual assault of a staff member
“Mia”, one of the victims to testify against Combs in New York, was his assistant for almost a decade. Her real name was kept anonymous because during the trial, she discussed several cases where she said that she had been sexually assaulted and raped by Combs. Before the trial, the producer Lil ‘Rod had accused Combs in a civil complaint of touching unwanted while working and lived with him for a year in 2018.
In the script for GreekA somewhat absurd demonstration of power of the character of Sergio de Combs makes him demand that a female group named Destiny “… go and have sex with Aaron (Hill) at the moment”. This is imposed on the character of Hill, who has a resident partner and no desire to have sex with this random woman. Later in comedy, this is confirmed, with the character of Aaron de Hill, “I think I have just been raped.” Which was perhaps funnier in 2010, we assume.
You can consult all these scenes and more with combs in its biggest cinema role on Netflix, where Bring it to the Greek is available to broadcast now.
