Billionaire Zionist Lucian Grainge is the Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world. But since February, he and his company have also been named ” defendants” in a lawsuit against hip-hop impresario P Diddy, whose legal name is Sean Combs.
As one of the most influential figures in one of the most popular musical genres of this century, Combs has many friends. Yet, among his closest are an outsized number of influential Zionists.
Combs has been hit with five civil lawsuits in four months, while the Department of Homeland Security raided his homes in Miami and Los Angeles in late March. Said to have hundreds of cameras inside his properties, and, naturally, footage of politicians and music industry executives, Combs’ role in a potential sexual blackmail operation with links to the Israel lobby bears shocking resemblance to the Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy.
One of the most powerful men in music with ties to the “Friends of the IDF” organization has been accused of financing and attending parties held by the artist, which featured trafficked, underage sex workers. Meanwhile, A-list actor Ashton Kutcher and other entertainment industry honchos close to Combs have maintained longstanding ties to the Israel lobby.
One of the civil lawsuits was filed by Rodney Jones, a former producer hired by Combs. It accuses Diddy of sexual assault. In graphic detail, the lawsuit alleges an Epstein-style conspiracy that includes crimes ranging from the sex trafficking of minors to surreptitious druggings, sexual assault, and gun violence. According to the lawsuit, Combs’ “freak off” parties were paid for by Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge and former Motown Records CEO Ethiopia Habtemariam in cash to avoid detection by federal authorities.
“Defendants executed their RICO Enterprise with threats of isolation from the music and entertainment industry: parading powerful music industry executives… at his parties filled with sex workers, minors, and illegal drugs, such as ecstasy, cocaine, GHB, ketamine, marijuana, and mushrooms,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Mr. Combs had hundreds of cameras in his homes in LA, NYC, and Miami. Mr. Combs required the sex workers and underaged girls to sign NDAs prior entering his parties, and prior to being drugged and sex trafficked at these parties,” the lawsuit adds. Jones “believes that Mr. Combs has recordings of Defendants” – namely Grainge and Habtemariam – “as well as other celebrities, music label executives, politicians, and athletes.”
Grainge has supported pro-Israel initiatives, such as a fund for Israeli Olympic athletes. As noted previously by Palestine Declassified, Grainge was photographed at a glitzy Friends of the IDF gala in 2016, presumably after making a hefty donation to the pro-occupation NGO. According to UK government documents, Grainge’s wife, Caroline Grainge, also funds several Zionist organizations.
Lucian Grainge also happens to be a “close friend” of Haim Saban, a Democratic Party power player and mega-donor to Zionist causes like the Friends of the IDF. Saban is an independent non-executive director at Universal Music Group and last month held a fundraiser for President Joe Biden.
Another former Universal Music Group figure moonlighting as a lobbyist for Zionism is David Renzer, the former Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing. Renzer founded an organization called Creative Community for Peace, an Israeli government-linked front behind the headline-making October 12, 2023 open letter from celebrities that ran cover for Israel’s impending genocide in Gaza. The letter characterized criticism of the onslaught as “an orchestrated misinformation campaign spearheaded by Iran.” Signatories of the letter included a slew of A-list celebrities, several Universal Music Group executives, artists, and Haim Saban.
Another music industry executive with close ties to P Diddy, Clive Davis, has collaborated with Creative Community for Peace. In 1994, Davis bankrolled the 23-year-old Diddy’s Bad Boy Records. Rumors in the hip-hop community of a relationship between the two – extending beyond their business dealings – have swirled around for over a decade. More recently, comments by imprisoned Death Row Records boss Suge Knight and former P Diddy bodyguard Gene Deal have thrown fuel on the fire.
Both Knight and Deal have also accused Combs of cooperation with federal authorities. Knight wrote in a since-deleted post on X, “People the raids today wasn’t for Diddy. It was to destroy the incriminating stuff on powerful men. #epstien #Diddy #clivedavis.”
Meanwhile, in a recent interview, Deal claims that Combs was a confidential informant for the FBI. “Confidential informants get paid good. But Puff [Combs] was a millionaire. Him being a confidential informant, him getting money like that – it was favors. He [sic] been getting favors, and then paying law enforcement people for years to protect him … He had a budget for law enforcement. Now if something goes wrong, those people got friends in certain places. Then he tells his handler, ‘yo, can you make this go away for me?’”
The Rodney Jones lawsuit similarly makes references to Combs’ bribes to law enforcement, accusing Combs of “threatening to eat Plaintiff’s face, displaying and distributing guns in Plaintiff’s presence, bragging about having law enforcement under control, bragging about murdering people, and bragging about bribing witnesses, and jurors.”
In charge of the bribes, according to the lawsuit, was Kristina Khorram, who is compared in the lawsuit to Ghislaine Maxwell. She and the head of security at Combs Entertainment, Faheem Muhammad, are accused of handling the bribes to law enforcement and the cash payments to sex workers.
While Combs’ ties to federal law enforcement may not amount to much more than gossip at present, his close friend for over two decades, Ashton Kutcher, has maintained a very public partnership with federal authorities. Kutcher is reportedly expecting to be subpoenaed concerning the federal investigation around Combs.
Until recently, Kutcher was the chairman and co-founder of an anti-child sex trafficking organization called Thorn, which works closely with the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies. “I’ve been on FBI raids where I’ve seen things that no person should ever see. I’ve seen video content of a child that’s the same age as mine being raped by an American man that was a sex tourist in Cambodia,” Kutcher testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2017, neglecting to explain why, exactly, his role as a leader of an anti-sex trafficking operation necessitated his viewing of child pornography.
Just sending out a morning shout to the men and woman of the intelligence community that keep us safe and protect our country. #gratitude #ty pic.twitter.com/Avi220aBh7
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) July 23, 2018
In addition to his work with Thorn, Kutcher is a prolific investor in surveillance firms. Meanwhile, his pro-CIA comments and frequent musings on geopolitics have led even a reporter at the notoriously pro-Democrat deep state outlet Mother Jones to wonder “if Ashton Kutcher is a CIA Asset.”
Kutcher stepped down from his role at Thorn in disgrace last September after his letter in support of his friend, convicted rapist Danny Masterson, sparked massive backlash.
That the former head of this anti-child trafficking organization had spent two decades partying with a figure now accused of trafficking children at his parties may make for a situation of strange bedfellows, but if the lawsuits against him are to be believed, Sean Combs is quite used to that.
Asked whether he has any “Diddy party stories” in an interview on the Hot Ones podcast in 2019, Kutcher struggled: “I’ve got a lot I can’t tell. So – uhh – I can’t tell that one either,” Kutcher said, reflecting on his memories with Combs.
While the saga of Sean Combs may still be developing, the hip hop mogul and his case’s ties to some of the most influential figures in both entertainment and the Israel lobby, any news to come will surely be a far cry from music to Israel’s ears.
Feature photo | Alexander Rubinstein
Alexander Rubinstein is a former staff writer and current contributor to MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He writes about police, prisons, and protests in the United States and has previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.