Diddy still hasn't received his sentence for his mixed criminal verdict earlier this year, but his efforts to quell his scandal continue in other areas. For example, earlier this month, he launched a $100 million defamation lawsuit against lawyers Ariel Mitchell and Courtney Burgess, as well as NewsNation's parent company Nexstar Media Group, for allegedly spreading false information.
After this move, AllHipHop's Grouchy Greg Watkins exclusively reports that Mitchell has responded to the Bad Boy mogul's accusations. She reportedly asked a federal judge to dismiss the legal move due to her argument that her comments about Sean Combs referenced public allegations and lacked "actual malice."
"There is no allegation that Ms. Mitchell made any knowingly false statements," the attorney's lawyer Steven Metcalf stated. He alleged that this complaint does not constitute defamation of a public figure in the legal sense since the accusations had roots in "active litigation or police reports." Diddy's legal team argues that these comments from these lawyers and the media group in question caused "severe reputational harm."
Diddy Lawsuit
Furthermore, he and his lawyers accused Ariel Mitchell of claiming she had footage incriminating Combs during an on-air interview, non-exclusive comments that Mitchell claims they're taking out of context. She argues that these comments referenced existing civil or criminal allegations. However, one of the lawsuit's other claims is that Mitchell bribed a witness, which her team called a criminal accusation rather than a civil one. Therefore, they believe this complaint mistakenly alleges the existence of official conclusions from the Florida Bar rather than what they supposedly are in reality: unfounded accusations.
In addition, Ariel Mitchell clapped back at Diddy's team's accusations by dismissing her alleged reputational connection to Nexstar and NewsNation. The accusations against her only recently appeared publicly, allegedly without court adjudication.
All in all, Mitchell's main defense against this Diddy lawsuit is that her accusations only came from lawsuits and criminal reports. As such, she believes her references to a 2018 police report did not reflect any fabrication and instead worked from existing legal filings, which she argues defends her from these defamation claims. We will see if the court removes the attorney from the lawsuit.
