Diddy Poised for Default Win in Lawsuit Over Courtney Burgess' Sex Tape Claims

Sean 'Diddy' Combs has moved to secure a default win in his defamation case against Courtney Burgess, with lawyers filing papers on Wednesday, 22 April, asking the court to rule in his favour after, they say, Burgess failed to respond to the lawsuit over alleged sex tapes. The filing means Sean 'Diddy' Combs could yet notch a procedural victory, though nothing has been confirmed by the court and the request still needs to be granted.

The latest move follows a lawsuit Combs filed before his 2025 conviction on prostitution-related charges, after Burgess publicly claimed he possessed videos showing the rapper in sexual encounters with eight celebrities, including two people he alleged were minors at the time.

Combs' side has flatly denied that those videos exist and, according to the reporting cited in the piece, accused Burgess of inventing the story and feeding a public frenzy already surrounding the case. Burgess, for his part, has said he is still standing by what he said.

Sean 'Diddy' Combs Seeks a Procedural Opening

The immediate issue is a simple one, at least on paper. Combs' attorneys told the court that Burgess was properly served, was competent to respond and did not do so, which is why they asked for a default judgment.

If a judge agrees, Combs could win the defamation case automatically against Burgess without the sort of drawn-out courtroom fight that usually comes with allegations this lurid. That does not make the underlying saga any less strange.

Burgess had become a fixture in the media noise around Combs after claiming he had access to explicit recordings that would tie the music mogul to sexual encounters involving well known figures. Combs' complaint, says Burgess was 'fabricating outlandish claims and stirring up baseless speculation,' language that leaves little doubt about how aggressively the rapper's legal team wants to frame the dispute.

There is also a more practical reason the filing matters. Combs is already serving a prison sentence, so even a narrow legal win carries weight, particularly in a case built around allegations that travelled quickly online and were consumed far beyond any courtroom. His lawsuit, quoted in the report, says people who accepted the defendants' claims had branded him a 'debauched 'monster' and a paedophile' across social media viewed by hundreds of millions.

Sean 'Diddy' Combs and the Tape Claims

Burgess' version of events was dramatic from the start. During a November 2024 appearance on NewsNation, he alleged that the supposed recordings showed Combs with 'eight celebrities,' six male and two female, and said two of those people were minors at the time of the encounters. Those are serious claims, plainly so, and the key point here is that Combs has denied the tapes exist at all.

Burgess also said a friend had given him flash drives that once belonged to Kim Porter, Combs' late ex-wife. He told reporter Ashleigh Banfield that he had testified before a grand jury in the Southern District of New York in October that year, adding another layer to a story already crowded with rumour, accusation and legal positioning.

When approached for comment, Burgess did not retreat. He was 'standing by his word' and added that Combs 'had a lot of nerve to want to sue somebody when he's going to rot in jail for all of the things he's done.'

Sean 'Diddy' Combs Still Faces Bigger Fight

Any suggestion that this filing changes Combs' wider legal picture would be overstated. He was sentenced in October 2025 after being found guilty last summer on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, and that he is serving a 50-month term at a low security federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey. According to Federal Bureau of Prisons records, his scheduled release date is 15 April 2028.

His lawyers are also still trying to unpick the conviction itself. At an appeal hearing on 9 April, the report says, they argued that the 'freak offs' at the centre of the government's case were immaterial under the Mann Act, the federal law that criminalises transporting someone across state lines for prostitution, 'debauchery' or 'any other immoral purpose.' So even if Combs does get the default judgment he wants against Burgess, the larger battle remains exactly where it has been for months, in the courts and under an unforgiving glare.