A $100 million defamation lawsuit over Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy has left Sean “Diddy” Combs with a sizable bill of his own. Months after his case against NBCUniversal, Peacock, and production company Ample was dismissed, a New York judge has ordered him to cover $477,700.50 of the defendants’ attorneys’ fees.
The figure is substantial, though considerably lower than what NBCUniversal wanted. According to TMZ, the company sought $990,292 after successfully defending against Combs’ lawsuit. The judge cut the request by more than half.
Combs’ representative, Juda Engelmayer, leaned into that reduction while responding to the order. “Yes, Sean was ordered to pay approximately $478,000 in attorneys’ fees, but that is only half the story,” he said. Engelmayer noted that NBCUniversal initially sought nearly $1 million and said the court found “substantial portions of its billing excessive and unreasonable.”
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The Documentary Lawsuit Already Cost Diddy In Court
Combs filed the lawsuit in February 2025, accusing NBCUniversal, Peacock, and Ample of defaming him through the Peacock documentary. Among his complaints were allegations presented in the film concerning the death of Kim Porter and claims involving underage women, which Combs maintained were false. He sought at least $100 million in damages. TMZ reported at the time that his attorneys had warned the companies about what they called “unverified conspiracy theories” before the documentary aired.
That case was dismissed in April under New York’s anti-SLAPP law, with Justice Phaedra F. Perry-Bond directing the defendants to apply for attorneys’ fees. Combs appealed the dismissal and later argued that the fee question should wait until the appeal was decided. His attorneys also contended that, if the court moved forward, a reasonable award should be no more than $166,769.25. NBCUniversal’s lawyers pushed for substantially more, ultimately requesting $990,292. Court records summarized by Diddy Docket show the fee dispute stretched across several rounds of filings before the court settled on $477,700.50.
There is another wrinkle in Engelmayer’s response. He pointed out that the arguments challenging NBCUniversal’s legal bills came from Sher Tremonte, the same firm that recently moved to withdraw from another Combs civil case amid its own dispute with him over unpaid fees. The firm alleged Combs owed a substantial balance and had stopped cooperating; Combs countered that he changed attorneys because he believed he was being overcharged for expenses he had not approved.
