Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Alexandra Stapleton on Diddy's rise and fall; Breaking down Netflix's "Sean Combs: The Reckoning" | 12.12

Transcript

Alexandra Stapleton on Diddy's rise and fall; Breaking down Netflix's "Sean Combs: The Reckoning" | 12.12 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Right Time, a Wave original.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a hater. All right, we have got a guest joining
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: us this time. I want to introduce you to her.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Her resume is kind of wild, man. We've got She's
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the director of the prime video documentary Reggie on Reggie
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Jackson that I need to see and I have not seen.
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  Speaker 1: She also did a documentary series on a book. Well,
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  Speaker 1: what was a book called How Music Got Free, which
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  Speaker 1: I have read, but I did not know there was
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  Speaker 1: a documentary. So I'm really looking forward to check this out.
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  Speaker 1: And as is germane to this here program, she's the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: director of Sean Combs, The Reckoning on Netflix, the Diddy documentary.
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  Speaker 1: Her name is Alexandria Stapleton.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Alexandria, how are you?
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I'm great.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Whenever we can have Houston people doing dope things for
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the city, we are totally here for this. We got
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a hater named Joel who listens to the show who
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: was going to be our backup Diddy guest. Houston is
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: holding this all the way down. I have so many
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: questions about this documentary. I've talked about it on the show.
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  Speaker 1: I recommend people watch it, check it out. I think
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it is very interesting. I think the first question I
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: have is really chronologically to me what I imagine for
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you is the first step of the process, which is
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: At some point, there's a phone call from 50 Cent
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  Speaker 1: who says, I want to do this documentary about this
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: guy that I don't really like that much. And I'm
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: very curious how that goes on your end when you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: receive this call.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Well, it wasn't as fantastical as that. 50 and I
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  Speaker 3: had met earlier, actually, through Eminem on How Music Got Free.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Eminem was an executive producer on that project. And so
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: prior to Cassie's lawsuit dropping, we actually were working on
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: other projects, other documentary projects with G-Unit and my company,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: House of Nonfiction. And so we were developing things and
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: then the lawsuit dropped. uh, Cassie's lawsuit. Um, and of course,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: you know, that's the, that went everywhere, you know, rapid pace. Um, I,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: we didn't talk about it on that day, but I, uh,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: you know, just wanted to wrap my head around, you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: is there a story here? I mean, it immediately was
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: very fascinating to me and then she settled and then
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: it kind of like the light went out, you know, like,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: and it was like, wait a minute, you just dropped
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: a bunch of knowledge, a bunch of allegations, um, And
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: so I just started trying to find other leads and
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: other ways to potentially look under the hood of that story.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: And simultaneously, 50 was public about wanting to do a
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: documentary series or a doc about the same subject matter.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: So then we linked up and spoke about it. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: we had a really long conversation. It was actually... he
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: knows my filmmaking style and that, you know, for me,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: this was, there was no conversation about like, how do
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: we create, you know, a BS piece of content just for,
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: for some sort of thing that had nothing to do
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: with the allegations. The goal was to talk about, you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: to talk about the subject matter and to understand and
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: unpack like how complex the and nuanced and, and, you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: just it's, it was going to be a really heavy conversation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Now, executive producer in this industry is a very broad term.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: So what was his involvement in the actual production?
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, he's, he's been really public about that
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: and interviews that we've done together. He was definitely, you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: as we were putting the pieces together, because everyone has
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: to remember this is before there was any indictment. This
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: is before the raid. This is, This is all that
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: was actually really out there was this lawsuit. So, you know,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: in trying to talk to people and get people to
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: open up to me, 50s involvement as a figure of
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the culture and someone who makes a project feel like
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  Speaker 3: this is going to go, this isn't just some you know,
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: random filmmaker who's going to come and collect knowledge and get,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: because there was a lot of paranoia in that timeframe
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: where people felt very scared to talk to anybody because
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: they didn't know if what they were saying was going
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: to be confidential or was it going to just be
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: put on a, on social media. So there was a credibility,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: you know I think a factor with, with 50 being
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: attached to this. And, we both really felt that in
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  Speaker 3: telling this story, we didn't want to destroy the culture
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  Speaker 3: of hip hop, you know, but through the allegations of
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  Speaker 3: one man. So that was one component, you know, and,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: and getting certain people to the table. And there's obviously
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: voices in there of people that are, that, that love
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Sean and are, are very much, you know, speaking in
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: his defense. So that was not, you know, that, that
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: really did not have anything to do with 50. And,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: and then, As the project, you know, went on, I
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: would share, you know, when I got to rough cuts,
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: I would start sharing it with him and would get
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: his feedback. And, you know, he's put it out there
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: that we would talk about things. He, you know, had
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: feedback and suggestions and I either adopted it or I didn't,
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  Speaker 3: you know. But it was usually more about the filmmaking,
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: not like, let's cut this story point. You know, we
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: never got into conversations about that. It was just like, oh,
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  Speaker 3: this part flows or, you know, he's, he has a
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: lot of skill. Obviously he's a man who's been making
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: content for over a decade and his narrative skill making,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: you know, what he does in the narrative space is tremendous.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: And so I think that people forget that he is
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: a really, he's an amazing storyteller in his own right.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Right now, this is an ambitious project to jump on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: for a lot of the reasons that you discussed, but also,
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  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, not wanting to make this an attack
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  Speaker 1: on the culture of hip hop, but at the same time,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the culture of hip hop is a major character in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the totality of this. So when you started doing this,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: did you have an idea in mind about how you
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to address the culture and the industry surrounding versus
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: just the story from the lawsuit?
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, whenever I approach a story, there's always
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: the macro and the micro. Like that's always like I literally,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: you know, usually start with a list for each. You know,
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  Speaker 3: here's the here's the big context. And here's the story of,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: you know, characters or one character. And and for this,
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: it was a dance. It was I only had four hours.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: And so, of course, when I started this, I I
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: wanted to go deeper. I wanted to understand the patterns
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: of this type of behavior that predate Sean Combs because
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: allegations like this don't just start with Sean Combs. There's
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  Speaker 3: a lot of history in the music business just as
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: a whole with similar allegations and abuses. But as you
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: start to put something together, you realize, you know, and
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: telling his story and also what was available to me,
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: because there are a lot of people that would not
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: sit with me and I can't just make things up.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I can't just like, there's no narrator and
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not just going to read from, you know, books
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: or articles. Like I actually need firsthand accounts of, of,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: of things. So I have to kind of pivot as
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  Speaker 3: a documentarian as to like making a piece based on
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: the people that are sitting with me. And that is
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: kind of like where you see and how you see
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: the series shaping up. And it very much became more
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: of an intimate portrait about Sean and the ecosystem that
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: he came into, you know, because people also forget that
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: hip hop was a really small community at that time period.
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  Speaker 3: Everyone kind of knew each other, especially in the streets
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: of New York, you know, and so. So I just,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: you know, I use the time that I had with
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: four episodes to really make that make sense. And then
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: so that when you understand what he did in creating
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Bad Boy, you would have context to that. And then
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  Speaker 3: even when we get into, you know, the East Coast,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: West Coast, I say that like this, that you understand that.
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  Speaker 3: that for so long, I think that that's always been
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: treated like, oh, LA is a different world, a different,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: you know, these are people that didn't even know each other.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: And it was really important for me to break down, no, these,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: you know, Suge Knight goes all the way back to Uptown.
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  Speaker 3: That's where he learns, you know, like the music business, like,
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  Speaker 3: and that these are relationships that go, that were really,
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  Speaker 3: really deep.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And so in only having four hours and truly covering
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a span of time, I mean, there's, Sean Combs life
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: is almost 60 years, but I think it's fair to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: say we're really talking about a span of 30 years
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  Speaker 1: is really getting into this right early 90s into the
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: early 2020s. Only having four episodes and with some pretty
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: like clear hallmarks to get to like, you know, episode
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  Speaker 1: two really is largely 1995 to 1996 right like is
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of time period. How did you figure out
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: or decide, how do you allocate the time? Because it's
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: not even like you can just say, okay, we've gone
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  Speaker 1: this far in time, we stopped the episode. Every episode
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  Speaker 1: has to stop, you know, have not just a point
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: of stopping, but a stopping point that lets you resume.
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  Speaker 3: I think that, you know, that getting in and out
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  Speaker 3: of the hours was less about being measured with the timeline.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: You know, oh, we did, this is 10 years, this
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: is 10 years, and this will be 10 years or
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: five or whatever. It was more about breaking it down
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  Speaker 3: for story, for people to understand the journey of Sean Combs.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: And so the first episode is sort of like all
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: the way up through the creation of Bad Boy. And
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: so you're ending that note with like, okay, we tried
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: to put out there, what did he learn? What did
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: he adopt? What was happening? The fact that he came
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: from party promoting and how he used and parlayed those
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: skills into the label. But along the way, as we
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: were tracking his his progress with what he actually did
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: contribute to hip hop, which is extraordinary, you know, there
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: was also like, kind of like under the hood, what
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: were these allegations that were happening? And I think that when,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: you know, again, starting this with Cassie's lawsuit, I think
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of people that, you know, cause
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: this is hitting so many different age groups. So for me,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I grew up with all this stuff, like, but you know, there's,
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: there's Gen Zers who like, they know Sean Combs just
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: as like making the band. That's where he starts in
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: the story. So I wanted to just kind of go
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: back enough to get people to understand sort of like
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: his origin story. But as we're doing that, to unpack,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: you know, allegations that were coming out, you know, as
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: I was making it and to kind of understand that
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: it predated Cassie.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: So what he contributed to hip hop, I actually think
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: is an interesting part and where I As I watch it,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I kind of go back and forth because I see
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: things that he helped to make bigger. But it feels like,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to me at least, and I'm curious your thoughts on this,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: just about everything that he contributed was something that somebody
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: else had done already.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, that's a way of looking at it.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: I think it does take a certain... you know, like
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: it takes a lot of energy to create and to
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: run a record label. I mean, I think we could all,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: you know, run a business like that is, is, is, is,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: is a big Herculean beat. And he was so young
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to do it. You know what I mean? So I
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: think that just in the creation of that, and that's
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: also why Kirk Borough's story, you know, again, was so
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: important because I think there was, a little bit of
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: the myth of like, he was all by himself. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: that was, that also became important, you know, when talking
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: about bad boy, well, it wasn't just Sean Combs, you know,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: it was, you know, this, this group of, of, of
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: women and men, because, you know, I mean, they were
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: so young and like, and like spirited, you know, and
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: they were really putting their mark, you know, on, on
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: a culture that was still being developed. So, um, You
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: could take it like that, or you could look at
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: creating an empire. That is a part of the work
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: that was needed to create the vessel and the machine
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: for all of these things to operate in.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that we get to early
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: in this is the infamous celebrity basketball game at CCNY.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: They turned into a disaster with multiple people being trampled.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I admit, until the documentary, I don't think I appreciated
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the magnitude of what a big deal that game was. Like,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I'm curious for you if that's one of the things
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: that when you got into this, you were like, oh.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I knew this was I knew this happened, but not
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: necessarily like I didn't think I had one rapper who
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: participated in the game hit me up. I was like, oh, wow,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: he was there. I had somebody else who said this.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And it was like, I just thought that this was
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: like those celebrity games. And I was in college that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: would just pop up and they were just like, OK,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it's a celebrity game. And it's the dude who did
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: after 12 before six and his partners and they play
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: in basketball.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: This was a thing thing in New York City.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Yes. And that's exactly how I felt. I had heard
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: about it, but reading about it or hearing about it
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: or hearing it mentioned in articles is very different than
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: when we started getting the footage in. And actually, I mean,
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: there's so much more footage that exists. And I think
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: that to just sit in that and to see the
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: aftermath of that and to really understand how people the
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: unbelievable tragedy of that. And that there were nine people
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: that were unalived, you know, the nine people that lost
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: their lives so young. And, and then, you know, the fam,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: all this, it's a very traumatic event, a very traumatic event,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: I'm sure to survive it, but to, to be witness
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: to it. And so, and I, I think it was really,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: really interesting, you know, to even, I was very blown
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: away of just seeing Sean, you know, in that footage
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and just looking, you know, like it just felt like a,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: like kind of like what you would imagine like a
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: war zone to be or something, you know, just like
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: this incredible tragedy and all these people around you. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: he just looked so lost and, and, and dumbfounded. And
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: so I, um, I, I think that, you know, that's
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: a part of making documentaries is like when you actually
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: have the footage, all of a sudden the experience becomes
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: more visceral in the storytelling.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: You know, and that footage is one thing I want
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to talk to you as we go along more about,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like the use of footage that is jarring because it
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: was very jarring to see the pictures of people on
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the ground in the gym with the blankets over them
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: and all of that. What struck me, though, was watching
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: when Combs is talking to the press and he's, you know,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: he's giving his story about which I thought was an
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: amazing piece of game. The only thing that matters is
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: making sure this never happens again. Like you wasn't there, right?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Like this has absolutely nothing to do with you. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I think it was the first moment when I watched
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: him there that I said to myself, and it continued,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: There are some people who I know who are around
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: who have tried to make the argument that like, oh,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you know, when he was Puffy, he was one guy
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: and then he became Diddy and he was another guy.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: But I watched that and it was like, oh no,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: this seems like this has been the same guy the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: whole way through. Just a lot of us on the
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: outside weren't wise, but it seemed.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: To be pretty constant.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Like there's no inflection point in his voyage where he
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: becomes a different person, just one in different circumstances.
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, his reaction was, to that, I thought it was
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: really important to include in the film because it's kind
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: of his first, you know, it's his entree to the press.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: It's his debutante, you know, to the world beyond, you know,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: what he had created already with party promoting. And, you know,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: he's still a very low level, you know, employee of Uptown.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: This isn't even like, you know, an executive, like who's
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: doing this. I think that, and for him to get
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: a press conference, Um, and to know how to, how
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: to handle that and what to say and to, to,
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: to kind of, you know, be very, you know, even
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: like the, the, the tenor of his voice I found
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: to be interesting and, and how you can hear, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: how he speaks, you know, and, and, and then when
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: you start putting these pieces together and the timeline together, it's,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: it feels it, you're like, oh, that reminds me of 1991,
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, So I find it to be very interesting.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I also feel like the reaction of him, you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: by Andre Harrell not being fired and being able to
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: continue to like blast off with his career, you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: was also just something interesting to see.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: The Andre Harrell part I also thought was interesting because
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: most of us who are like of a certain age
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: know the Uptown story and the fact that he worked
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: with Andre. One thing that I found to be very interesting,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and it was kind of subtle in this is I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: felt the doc suddenly made the point that while there
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: are some things that are very particular to Puff, but
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: it's also kind of the world that he came from.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And one of them we talked about, well, you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: at Uptown, they found a way to make sure you
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: didn't get anything other than your dance. And that's what
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Puff learned. And yes, that's about him, but that also
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: speaks to the larger industry. And I'm, I found that
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: to be an interesting part of the documentary is those,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: those things about him where it is also made clear though,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: that this isn't the only guy who did it, right?
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Like we go back to Barry Gordy if we wanted to.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: You can go back to the 1930s, you know, to
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: the creation of, I mean, the creation of the music
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: business and selling records has gone hand in hand with
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: exploiting artists, you know? And I wish that I had
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: more time, you know, to, to, to go. I mean,
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: of course, like I, there's so much more, to go
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: into and maybe there'll be, you know, maybe this raises
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: an eyebrow for more people or filmmakers or, you know,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: more journalists to go and get into those stories. But yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that none of, none of, none of that part of,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I think the allegations against Sean, artists who are, who have,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: you know, felt chronically exploited by him. No, Sean Combs
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: did not start that at all. And he, he, that's,
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Especially back then, I think it was just the way
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: the business worked. There's no policing of the music industry
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: at a big level. It's so different now how corporate
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: things work. But yeah, it did not start with him.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like Barry Gordy's story always was, I used the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: same contract as MGM.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Right. Like I take the exact same one.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: But as we as we get past that point, after
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: we go to the break in a few, I want
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: to talk more about Tupac.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: But first, I want to talk one.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Thing that I think is interesting when you start getting
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: into the era of bad boy is now as we're
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: talking about, we are getting into his relationships with the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: artists that he had. And you prominently feature Mark Curry
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: in his documentary, who has a book called Dance with
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the Devil that I think people should read. I checked
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: that a few years ago and he was one of
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: the first people to make the point that everybody who
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: worked with Puff ended up dead in jail or in church.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Which was a big one in terms of where he
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: drives people.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: What was it like.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: For you to do these interviews with people who were
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: actually affected? Because I don't know if anybody was affected
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: more than Curry was. It comes out in his face
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and everything he talks about. about on screen.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there was a lot that went into that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I think that there was a design to that where
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to people that could speak beyond just...
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: I wanted to speak with people that had kind of
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: been trying to put this on the map for a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: very long time, because I knew that there would be,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: you know, in watching this, that people might feel like, oh, well,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: you're just, you know, you just came and spoke out
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: against Sean Combs to pile on and post Cassie's lawsuit. And,
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: you know, in starting to unpack and investigate and doing
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: the research, I realized there were quite a few people
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that were kind of sounding the alarm, you know, for
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: various different reasons. And Mark Curry was one of those people.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: He wrote a whole book about his time with Bad Boy.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: But Mark Curry also has a very interesting kind of
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: place in the story where he had so much time
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: in Atlanta. He had time. He knew the LA dudes
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: that were kind of a part of the story. And
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: he knew New York because he's got family ties to
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: all these worlds. So That is that started to become
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: really that that started to hit for me that I
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is this is bigger than just
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Harlem or Mount Vernon. You know, like this story of
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Sean Combs, you can't tell it without kind of getting
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: into Atlanta, without getting into Los Angeles and understanding how
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: all these worlds were kind of moving together.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And as I say, I think Curry may have been
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the artist most effective, but I think Kirk Burroughs, who
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: was Diddy's partner in Bad Boy, obviously seems to be
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the most effective person. And I ask about him because
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: since the film has come out, some of the things
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: that he alleged, we've seen pushback from people.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: The idea that Diddy made.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Biggie's funeral a recoupable expense, for example, and questions as
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to whether or not that happens. For you, what is
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: the process of verifying something that comes from interviews like
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the ones with Burroughs, who seem to have a lot
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: of information? that he would have access to that most
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: people would not?
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Well, when things are a part of a lawsuit and
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: when we also ask for comment with these allegations, that's
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: a part of journalism. And the interesting thing about Kirk
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: is that he's made repeated claims, again, going all the
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: way back to 2003. At that time period, he was
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: just like, laughed out the courthouse essentially. Um, uh, and then,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you know, that kind of his lawsuit like went into
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: kind of like kickstarted a whole bunch of, um, uh,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: other things, you know, in his, for him, for him. Uh,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: but I felt like this is interesting to see a
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: man who keeps going back with the same, you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: claims essentially, you know, there's, uh, some additional things in
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: the new, the new suit that he has, but that
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: was very much a part of the story. And then obviously,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: you know, I talked to him, there's a million people
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: that I have spoken with off the record, you know,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: that are not in the film. And then you start
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: to understand Kirk's position from other people, you know, and
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: what he, what he was around doing at the time.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: You know, all I can say with the pushback of, of,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the things that he is alleging, you know, in his,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: in his civil suit would be for people to, to
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: look at who's saying those things, you know, and to,
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: to do the work of, you know, to, to do
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: the work of, of understanding where, where that pushback is
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: coming from. I think that's a part of the, the
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: responsibility before, you know, it just goes a lot, you know,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: it just goes crazy and you're just believing, you know, anything.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: And then, and then of course, like everyone has a
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: right to come forward with, you know, a pushback, a,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: you know, other evidence. But I think it's, it's, it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: a complicated matter. You know, Kirk, you're getting into like
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of, of technical things about how records are kept,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: what his position was. And there weren't, There weren't a
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: lot of people like around, you know, doing that. So
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: to even break down like how the funeral would have
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: potentially been a part of recoupment. That's a whole, you know,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: that's a whole hour. That's a whole course, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: of understanding that. So it's a lot more complex than
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: I think, you know, than the chatter around it.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: You touched on something there that I think was interesting,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: which is the idea that when Burroughs fired the suit
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: in 03, that he was laugh, you know, kind of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: laughed out. And it's interesting how many things with Diddy
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: that got laughed away in spite of the things that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: we knew actually factually happened. So, for example, we knew
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: that he beat up Steve Stout with a champagne bottle
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: like we knew that this thing happened. Um, later, you know,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: this is not in the film, obviously, but like the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: example of him swinging a kettlebell at the strength coach
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: at UCLA, like we have examples of a lot of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: really wild things that he had done yet. Somehow we
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: laughed off things that people alleged. And it wasn't as though, like,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: we don't think he could do such a thing. We
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: knew he could. What did you come away from feeling
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: in doing this movie? Like how it was possible that
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: these things could be known, but also be dismissed almost
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in the same breath.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: I think that, you know, it taps into like what
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: the bigger message of the series was for me. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: the bigger message was that this is a story that
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: is bigger than Sean Combs. Actually, what I was trying
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: to do was to turn the mirror on us as
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: a public as to what we accept, dismiss. Oh, we
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: just make a couple of jokes about let it go. Or,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: you know, oh, damn, that was, you know, that was
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: effed up. Like, but like, whatever. Where is, Where is
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: the public's threshold of holding people with positions of power
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: and fame accountable?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Coming up next, we're going to talk about the Tupac
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and Biggie Chronicles from Sean Combs' The Reckoning. It's the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: holiday season, and it's time to make dreams come true.
• 26:12
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• 26:14
  Speaker 1: talented people, from actors to editors to props people to
• 26:18
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• 26:22
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• 26:54
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• 26:57
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• 27:05
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• 27:07
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• 27:09
  Speaker 1: All right, we are back with Alex Stapleton, director of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Sean Combs, The Reckoning.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: Um, I mean, there's kind of no easy way to
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: ease into this.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I watched the documentary and came away from it feeling
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: something that I had never really felt before, which is
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: it seems entirely possible that Diddy had Tupac killed. The
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: relationship that he had with, if only circumstantial, with whatever
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: happened in Las Vegas in September of 1996.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Did you go into that.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Learning what you saw, or is that something that, when
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you began formulating this film, it's like, oh, okay, I
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: think this is something we'll talk about?
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: I did not see, getting into Tupac's tragic death is
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: something that happened organically. And I didn't have a clear
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: understanding of how much time that we were gonna give.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: I definitely wanted to make sure that I was opening
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: up more of the backstory that led up to those events.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: And I felt like the club shooting in Atlanta, just
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: some of the back and forth that was going on, even,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: like I said earlier, really getting people to understand that
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: there was a relationship that existed or that Sean and
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Chug knew each other and that Pac knew Biggie and Sean,
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: you know, that these were all relationships of people that
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: were familiar with each other, even if they weren't all friends.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, I think it's interesting that if
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: the takeaway of this is the takeaway of this, but
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: what became important to me was that when I had
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: all of the proffer tapes and all of this, you know,
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: law enforcement material that I thought it was important to
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: just let it speak for itself. Kifi D is the
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: person that is alleging this, you know, Kifi D is
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: the person who repeatedly, you know, has kind of said
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: the same story. And Kifi D is currently in jail
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: awaiting trial for the murder of Tupac. So I felt
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: like as a, as someone covering the story, he's, he
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: is involving, you know, Sean and putting him into the
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: story How could that be overlooked? I felt like, well,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: if I'm going to do this, then we have to
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: unpack it so that by the time Keefy starts speaking
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: on it, you understand who all the players are that
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: he's alleging that were involved in the story.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: How was it for you as a process balancing his claims?
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: He is not the most reliable narrator. We could not
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: just have KVD speak on his own.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: We included interviews with law enforcement. We had a ton
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: of files that were given to us for our own review.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: And that was backed up. And I think that the trial,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: this is everything that exists that we had. And now
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: the trial will be the trial, you know, like that
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: is where the law will, the legal system will take
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: control of presenting, you know, whatever happens with that. Of course,
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: you know, as the filmmaking team, we reached out, you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: for a comment from Sean and did not hear anything back,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: did not get any response.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And I think the film speaks to something that I
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: don't think I had properly contextualized is this was really
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: a Puff and Suge beef as much, if not more
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: than it was a Tupac and Biggie beef. Like I
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: remember the 95 Source Awards where Suge, you know, all
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: up in the videos dancing was the famous part. But
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I always remember from watching it when Diddy got to
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the microphone and he was all the way in the
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: diffuse mode and it always felt in watching like it
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: was the gangsters on this side And this dude's just
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: running a record label, but no, these guys actually seem
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: pretty similar.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Well, it, again, it, it struck me as being very
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: interesting whenever he has the public, you know, and he's
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: on the mic and he has the podium, how he presents,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: you know, himself. And that is, that is, that is
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: there for, for people, you know, to make their own,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: to draw their own conclusions, you know, to, You know,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: it's it's constantly this paradox, right, of the public facing
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Sean Combs and then the Sean Combs that that is underneath,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: you know, the hood and like what's what's festering, what's
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: brewing and what's happening, you know, behind closed doors.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: And his preternatural ability to maximize any situation in the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: way that he looks at it, example of that being.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: after Biggie dies and it's time for a Rolling Stone cover,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: like actually that's time for my Rolling Stone cover.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm about to put my album out after this.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: It's like at every turn, no matter what bad happened,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: he had somehow figured out how he was going to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: be the guy that came out on top.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, everyone grieves differently.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: That's well done.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: That's that's that he definitely grieved in his own way.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: That is that is the way to put this.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: It did it in part after it got in the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: timeline between Biggie dying. There is obviously the shooting at
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the club in Club New York that involves shine and goodness.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I wish you could have gotten him to sit down
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: because I mean, he's not he's a politician.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: He's a little bit over it. But boy, he used
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: to be mad.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: There's almost, it's not a gap in time between then
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and when we get to Cassie, but it seems like
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: it felt like the goal of the film was to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: establish the person that may have then arisen by the
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: time we get to kind of the late aughts in
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the early teens in his relationship with Cassie. with Cassie,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but it does seem that it's like the line from
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the wire. The game didn't change. It's got more fierce.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: It does seem that by the time you get to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the end of that, he was the same person all
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the time, but there definitely seemed to be, it felt
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: darker and more sinister. Like, is that kind of how
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: you felt in, in terms of putting this story together?
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I think that it's a, it's a
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: story as old as time, right? You know, what happens
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: when you have more access to power, more access to money. Um, it, it,
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: you being able to control your narrative, um, it becomes,
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: you know, like that there becomes a machine. It's like
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: hard to, hard to, to penetrate or to, to alter. Um,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: and this is also, again, happening. I think what's really
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: fascinating is a lot of this story takes place before
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: social media was like at play or where people could like,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: you know, just put up their cell phone and record,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: you know, someone doing a bad deed, you know, at
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: a club or whatever, um, So it was so much easier,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: I feel like back then to, to sweep things underneath
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: the rug and to, and, and to sort of also
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: control legacy media or to control outlets, you know, that
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: were reporting on stuff to get people to, to, to sway,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: you know, and to, to kind of keep your, your
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: brand tight. And so I think that it was just
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: the perfect storm for him. You know, I was like,
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: think of like, I did this film called Shut Up
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: and Dribble, this series called Shut Up and Dribble. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Scoop Jackson was like, you know, Michael Jordan is like,
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: it's like the perfect storm. Everything has to align right
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: for Michael Jordan to be like Michael Jordan. Of course,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: he's a goat, right? But like Nike has to be
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: where it's at. The NBA has to be where it's at.
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: Chicago Bulls have to be where they're at. And then
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: you have this player. And I think There's a similarity
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: with that, especially in the 2000s with Sean Combs. Again,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: maybe maybe a bit darker in tone as far as
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: what was going on, you know, with these allegations behind
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: closed doors. But it's like this perfect storm of how
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: he was in the middle of of this like giant
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: culture shift, you know, all of these things happening. He's
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: in the right place at the right time to link
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: up with a liquor company. And it's just, everything happens.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: And he has the know-how to like start a clothing line.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: He's diversifying himself, but hip hop was also diversifying itself.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: And hip hop was, you know, Steve Stout wrote the
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: tanning of America. Yeah. This is that time period, you know,
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: and all these guys were benefiting from that. But, you know,
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: the question becomes, As Sean was building those business opportunities,
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: with these allegations, it's like if the allegations are all true,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: it seems as though his ecosystem was also designed to
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: kind of keep those things suppressed. Right.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Now, in expressing a lot of the ideas or telling
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: the story, we talked about this a little earlier when
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: we talked about the CCNY incident. You had access to
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of truly jarring footage to sell a lot
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of these. You had access to footage from the murder
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of Biggie Smalls that we had not seen previously. Lil
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Rod and the pictures of the guy he allegedly got
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: shot in the bathroom, for example.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: For you as filmmaker, was there a specific.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Importance to use that, like the gold to, it's easy
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to kind of be like, oh, this is wild internet news,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: but like to make it such that you, no, no,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: these are real things that happened.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: I mean, it goes back to when we were talking
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: about why CCNY hits you very hard. When you have
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: tangible footage, tangible, or even with Joy Dickerson reading a letter,
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: when you have these artifacts or pieces of archival, it
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: of course kind of puts what the person is saying
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: and their allegations. It sort of gives you... it becomes
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: a visceral like conversation and, and there's just no, that's just,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: there's no denying that, you know? Um, uh, and I
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: think that so much of how Sean Combs is with,
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: and I have to say, I've never met him, spent
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of time with him in the edit pay,
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: but I, I think that he really comes, you start
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: to understand how he speaks to people, how it's not,
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: you know, with the little rod voicemails, it's like, it's not, um,
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: it's very interesting, you know, the sort of way that
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: he can kind of make you feel like a million dollars,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: but like cut you and then make you feel like,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: don't ever ask me for anything. Like, and to do
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: all of that in 30 seconds, like kind of have
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: to hear it in order for it to, in order
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: to really understand, you know, what Little Rod is even
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: talking about. Otherwise, yeah, it seems like crazy. Like you,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: you know, and most people don't work in the music industry.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: So they're like, you worked for a guy for a
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: year and like, like, how did you even do that?
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: Like without getting paid, that is fantastical, you know, to,
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: to most people.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think, I think we have a lot
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of questions for Lil Rod and that is the, the, the,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: the first one that comes up. I, in, in watching this,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: obviously you had all this footage for Diddy and you
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: had this footage because he's one of those people who
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: recorded himself all the time. And you just mentioned getting Yeah,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: you just mentioned getting to know him at the edit bay.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: And I don't know really how to phrase the question,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: but I'm just curious, the experience of seeing somebody, like
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: you just said, you got to know him even though
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you don't know him.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Like that feels like a weird.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Dystopian sort of thing to try to, like, however long
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: you did this, it's like you were talking to the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: chat bot, but the chat bot was Diddy.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think I feel that way. I
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: think my editors feel that way, you know, my my
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: showrunner the producer uh i think we all like we're
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: like we we you start to understand when you have
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: so much and there's so much footage that's not even
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: in the film right like uh you start to see
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: his his um like his, his gears, you know, like
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: there's the gear of being very performative and the bravado
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: of like, I'm on camera and I'm going to run this,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: you know, this situation. And then there's, you know, moments
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: where you can feel like, oh, he forgot that the
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: camera was there. Or, you know, there's moments where he's, he's,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, I can even tell because this is a
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: man who was, who worked in reality television for a
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: very long time. When you work in that space, you
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: know how to turn it on and off when the
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: cameras are rolling. And you also know that like, oh,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: this little thing over here that I don't want people
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: to know about, I can cut that out. So if
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: I let loose a little bit, I'm gonna be okay.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: And you see all those gears at play or we
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: did in making this. And I think that it almost
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: felt like as a filmmaker, it almost felt like I spent,
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: like I actually filmed him But it's really just because
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: of his quest to always be filming everything about his life.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: So you have mentioned the extent that you and this
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: production has gone through to protect the identity of the
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: filmmaker from whom, where all this film came from. I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: ask you to clarify this because honestly, I feel silly
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: almost asking, but didn't Diddy know who was filming him
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: all the time?
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: That's a question for Diddy.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: There we go. I'll ask him next time I see him.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: But in the end, it's interesting to hear you say
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: that you viewed this as much as a mirror for
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: the public to put before themselves and ask, you know,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: how this happened. And I feel like a part of
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: expressing that point was the jurors being present in the documentary.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Were you surprised that they wanted to? Or is this
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: like I felt like when Ezra Edelman did O.J. Made
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: in America and he had the jurors they had had
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: 20 years of being called basically stupid black people. And
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: they didn't, they felt like there was an explanation to
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: be given. I didn't, I was surprised that for this trial,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the jurors, especially so soon, would have wanted to have
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: been a part of it. Did that surprise you at all?
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Yes and no. Yes and no. I think if you
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: had to ask me like during the trial, like, oh,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: when this is all over and, you know, of course
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: we're going to do our reach out to try to
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: find these jurors. Are they going to say yes? I
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: probably would have been like a fat chance. Right. But
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: it was such a similar to OJ's trial. It kind
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: of I feel like it started out pretty serious and
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: it just kind of became a circus. You know, like
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: the actual proceedings at the like outside of the courthouse,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: I guess. And I wouldn't say that the courtroom was
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: a circus. But I feel like the jurors, you know,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: there I just feel like there was a lot of
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: adrenaline going. going. And I think that transferred potentially over
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: to them. And for them, I think, you know, I
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: think they were very adamant to speak, to share, like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: this is how we got to this verdict, you know,
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: and they felt very proud of their decision. But it
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: was just a curious, like, it was like a very
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: interesting energy. And, you know, honestly, like, I spoke to
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: more jurors. These were the two that we actually filmed with.
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: But there could have been more, you know, I just,
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: we weren't really doing like the trial as like an episode, but,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: and they all, they all, they all were very, not
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: every single juror, but the jurors that I did speak with,
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: they were, they were totally fine and okay with, with
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: being filmed.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: And I do think I came away, like, I think,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: As unsettling as this line may have been for some people,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I think there was something to it. But domestic violence
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: was not one of the charges. I felt like I
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: came away from it, much like the O.J.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Documentary. The O.J. documentary, I came away with two thoughts.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: I came away more certain than ever that O.J. killed
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: those people and more certain than ever that he should
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: have been acquitted. As counterintuitive as that may seem, I
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: felt in this also to a degree, I see why
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: on those larger charges there was an acquittal.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Was there.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Was what you were doing at all an attempt to
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: explain what the jurors may do or how the outcome
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: came to be or just a retelling of the events themselves?
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: I think it was giving their perspective, like a window
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: into their perspective. I think beyond the actual verdict decision,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting, and especially because we were
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: able to secure an interview with Capricorn Clark. So I
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: thought that it was interesting to, for me to sit
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: down with Capricorn and to kind of understand like where
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: she emotionally was, you know, and I think that this
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: was like a lot for her, you know, I think
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: as you, this was also something that's very nuanced, but
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: like Kirk Bros has had a couple of decades to
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: kind of sort of be at peace with how he
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: tells this story. Cause he's, there's so much time that
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: has gone past. Capricorn kind of, I feel like for her,
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: and I think it's a fair representation to say this,
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: I feel like she was very surprised when Cassie's lawsuit dropped.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: You know, she was just thrust into like this very,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: you know, the trial of the century. And she's a
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: part of it. And she's a part of like a
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: very big part of like, you know, a car bomb and,
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: you know, like this whole like crazy story. And she's
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: in the center of that. And, you know, and she has,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: like a very long relationship with both Cassie and Sean,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: you know, in working with both of them. So it
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: sort of was interesting because to me, when I'm interviewing people,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: it's like you can meet people where they are to understand, well,
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: she's going to, you know, a lot of this is
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: very visceral for her, potentially even re-traumatizing her. So she
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: may not be the perfect person in articulating herself at
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: every minute on a stand, It's very interesting to hear
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: the jurors' perspectives that that kind of meant that they
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: took that, that meant something different for them. Right.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: And I think also in making this movie, something that
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I guess people, I think a lot of people know,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: but most people don't necessarily think about is there are
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: no cameras in federal court, right? So we just get
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: the weirdo pictures, right?
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: The scribbles.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Very weirdo pictures.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they come out in... I would like that trial.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Is so interesting because in the film, for example, like
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: we got to see a lot of like the recreations
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: of emails that were sent between Cassie and Diddy, you know,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: all these different things.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: And we would see them.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: But obviously, through no fault of your own, it feels
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: like that's kind of the missing piece in this is
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: to see what it was.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Like in those moments.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: With him looking like Frederick Douglass because he can't get
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: no shoe polish while he's in jail to touch his
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: shit up. And then all these things are going on
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: and he's there. And at the end, he's on his knees.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Like it's the wildest scene. And I can only imagine
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: how jealous a filmmaker has to be that you know
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: this is there and just can't get a hold of it.
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I, yeah. It's like, it's really frustrating
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: because like going back to comparing it to the OJ trial,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: like I feel like OJ was televised, right? But the
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: jurors were sequestered.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: And this is the opposite.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Exactly. So it's like that was that. And then this
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: was like non sequestered jurors, but no TVs in the courthouse.
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: Very interesting. Yeah, I think cameras being there would I
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: can only imagine like how the dynamic change would have
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: been for better or for worse for Sean Combs. I'm
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: not sure.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: But I.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: It would be really interesting if the public could have
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: seen things. And yeah, the drawings are, it's almost like
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: the drawings make it like even more not real.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: So as we start to wrap this, I am terrible
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: when people ask me the most or the biggest or whatever,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: but I am curious if there's anything that jumps out
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: to you as being something really interesting to you that
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: you came across in working on this that you had
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: not known or were not aware of before you started
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: working on this film?
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: Oh man. I mean, there's a lot that I didn't know.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, as far as like just basic level facts,
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think for me, like opening up, you know,
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: the second episode and like I said, really going back
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: to the windy, the winding, windy road of, of, of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: how all these people, um, uh, knew each other was,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: was really fascinating to me. Uh, I, um, I should,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: I should have a prepared answer for this. Cause I like,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: I feel like when I'm with 50, like he, he's, he's,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: he kind of, maybe he's been answering this more than me, but, um, I,
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: I think it, I think what I probably the biggest
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: thing that was a sub, that I had to grapple
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: with was kind of a question that I asked myself
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: and it was a part of the reason as to
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: why I started it, which was like, as a culture,
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: this is going back to like, this is about us, right?
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: As a community of people in a post-MeToo world, Like
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: when we, when we, when the egg is cracked open
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: and we have, you know, allegations like this and in
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: the hip hop space and in the hip hop community,
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: like what will the reaction be? And I think that,
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: you know, I think that like the film is kind
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: of still asking the question of that. I don't think
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I'm giving, I cannot give that answer. I'm just a filmmaker,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: you know, like, and I, but what I do think
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: is interesting is how I really, I thought that maybe
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: I would be more at it. We would have more
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: of an ending by now, but it almost feels like
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: this is the beginning of like a new chapter and
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: new conversations and new ways to analyze again, not just
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: Sean Combs, but I hope that this, really starts to
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: lead into conversations about analyzing our legal system and, you know,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: how we handle, uh, conversations about victims, how our legal
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: system handles conversation, uh, uh, allegations, you know, um, uh,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: for victims. Uh, so yeah, it's, um, it's just, it's
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: just a slice of time, a piece, a reflection piece. And, um, yeah.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Well, All right.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: That is Alexandria Stapleton. She is the director of Sean Combs,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: The Reckoning. I want to read some more of this
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: stuff from your bio because everything in here is like, wow,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: this sounds really cool.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: You got a fourth cover documentary.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: On Terrell Owens in partnership with Skydance that is coming.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: You directed one part of God Save Texas, The Price
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of Oil, a documentary series that HBO did. And we
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: talked earlier about how music got free and Reggie Jackson.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I got some things to go check. So I want
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: to go let the other people know if they want
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: to see more of your work, how they could get it.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: And I appreciate you joining us.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I got another, it's announcing today.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: That- Oh yes, Brittany Griner film.
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: So H-Town.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: Yes, 2026 on ESPN, the Brittany Griner film is coming.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: All right, no problem.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: here on The Right Time. We do this four times
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: a week. Ryan Brumley handing everything behind the scenes.
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir. Remember- Follow the right time.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Also hit the voicemail line 323-596-7767. Subscribe, like, rate us,
• 51:37
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• 51:39
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• 51:41
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• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Take it easy.