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Beverage company Diageo is breaking off its business relationship with Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The entrepreneur and music mogul previously accused the company of failing to invest resources into his Ciroc vodka and DeLeon tequila brands — treating them as “urban” products.
In a response filed Tuesday with the Manhattan federal court, Diageo stated that Combs made “false and reckless allegations, including numerous defamatory and disparaging accusations of racism on the part of Diageo and certain of its senior executives.” The company filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit or move Combs’ case to arbitration, according to Bloomberg.
“Mr. Combs’ bad-faith actions have clearly breached his contracts and left us no choice but to move to dismiss his baseless complaint and end our business relationship. Mr. Combs has repeatedly undermined our partnerships and threatened to publicly defame Diageo if we did not meet his unreasonable financial demands,” a Diageo spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday. The company claimed to have invested more than $100 million to grow DeLeón, alleging that Combs “contributed a total of $1,000 and refused to honor his commitments.”
The company added, “We have exhausted every reasonable remedy and see no other path forward.”
In a suit filed last month, Combs’ attorneys claim that Diageo and its executives have “put their feet on the neck of Mr. Combs’ brands. In a business where production, distribution, and sales are the pillars of success, Ciroc and DeLeon have been starved of resources for all three.”
Combs also alleged that Diageo’s President of Reserve and New Business, Stephen Rust, “directly acknowledged the company’s racist undertones in 2019,” and told the entrepreneur that some of the company’s leadership “resented him for making too much money.” The suit also claims that Rust admitted that Combs’ race was “part of the reason Diageo limited the neighborhoods where the Combs brands were distributed.”
In response to Diageo’s Tuesday filing, per the Financial Times, Combs’ attorney claimed the company “attempting to end its deals with Mr. Combs is like firing a whistleblower who calls out racism. It’s a cynical and transparent attempt to distract from multiple allegations of discrimination.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, Diddy’s rep said, “Diageo attempting to end its deals with Mr. Combs is like firing a whistleblower who calls out racism. It’s a cynical and transparent attempt to distract from multiple allegations of discrimination. Over the years, he has repeatedly raised concerns as senior executives uttered racially insensitive comments and made biased decisions based on that point of view. Diageo even acknowledged the problem by agreeing in his contract to treat DeLeon the same way it treated their other tequila brands. He brought the lawsuit to force them to live up to that contract, and instead they respond by trying to get rid of him. This lawsuit and Mr. Combs are not going away.”
This story was updated June 28 with Diddy’s rep statement.
