When music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was the subject last week of a bombshell indictment that charged him with racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution, it sent shockwaves through the music industry. But some were far from surprised.

Rumors about Diddy’s alleged behavior have trickled out for years, and some celebrity women even made comments about him in interviews in the past. The problem? Few people listened.

In a 2004 profile of Kimora Lee Simmons, she recalled a time Combs threatened to hit her while she was pregnant. In 2022, former Danity Kane member Aubrey O’Day revealed on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that her forced departure from the girl-group in 2008 was related to her refusal to do “what was expected of her” by Combs in areas unrelated to music. And singer Jaguar Wright has stood her ground for years, accusing Combs’ in various interviews of serious crimes. In one video interview, Wright says that she was called a “liar” and accused of being jealous of Combs’ success.

It wasn’t until footage of Combs physically assaulting ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura emerged that people began listening to their stories. Why?

Experts say that gender and racial bias, as well as cognitive biases like the “halo effect,” contribute to the denial of sexual assault allegations — leaving survivors subject to shame and disbelief.

The ‘halo effect’ protects celebrities from scrutiny
A cognitive bias called “the halo effect” can protect a public figure’s image in the face of sexual abuse allegations, according to Elizabeth L. Jeglic, a clinical psychologist and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

When we have a positive impression of someone like Combs, a Grammy-winning artist who spent time with Oprah and Obama, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Howard University, Jeglic says the public tends to “discount the information that is incongruent with our perception of him,” especially when someone with “less status than him” comes forward.

That may be what happened in 1999. The rapper was at a club with then-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, and Combs and his bodyguard Anthony “Wolf” Jones allegedly got into a disagreement with rapper Moses “Shyne” Barrow, and the resulting gunfight left three people injured. After a police chase, Combs, Lopez, Jones and Barrow were all briefly arrested. The ensuing jury trial found only Barrow guilty of first-degree assault for shooting two bystanders. One of the victims was Natania Reuben, who has consistently claimed Diddy was one of the men shooting.

But it can sometimes take irrefutable evidence before people change their perception of a celebrity, such as when the video of Combs assaulting Ventura at the hotel came out.

“That starts to get people thinking, ‘Can he really behave like this?'” Jelgic explains.

Diddy sex trafficking charges:What does this mean for him?

Black women survivors ‘face an uphill battle’
Some of the women alleging Combs abused them are Black women, which may play a part in the doubt they faced. According to Chloe Grace Hart, an assistant professor of sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison, this dates back to the 19th century, where the minimization of of Black women’s experiences of sexual violence in the United States was “actually written into law.”

“In some southern states, only white women could legally be recognized as victims of rape,” Hart says. “Certainly that is no longer the case today but remnants of that kind of thinking persist, though not necessarily at a conscious level.”

In a recent study conducted by Hart, she found that Americans were less likely to say they believed a Black woman describing a sexual harassment experience compared to a white women describing the same thing.

“That suggests that when it comes to sexual violence, Black women survivors face a particularly steep uphill battle to be believed,” she says.

Black and Latina women are also often oversexualized, which matters greatly when it comes to abuse allegations, according to Reneé Carr, a clinical psychologist and human thinking expert.

“When people see that someone is claiming that they were sexually assaulted or sexually abused, (they think) that person probably really wanted it, because in our mind, we have an unconscious stereotype that they are already highly sexual anyway,” she says.

Sean “Diddy” Combs and his defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo stand before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky after prosecutors brought three criminal charges against him in federal court in the Manhattan borough of New York City on Sept. 17, 2024, in this courtroom sketch.
‘Men still hold a lot of the power,’ but there’s strength in numbers
“We still largely live in a patriarchal society, where men still largely hold a lot of the power,” Jelgic says. “So, when women come forward with allegations, it’s much easier to vilify them and make them out to be emotional or crazy.”

Black women are also stereotyped as “angry,” and that bias can further exacerbate the neglect and gaslighting in response to their lived experiences.

However, when multiple women come forward with recounts of abuse, it becomes easier for the public to accept and listen to these narratives. We may reach a day when it won’t take overwhelming evidence for women to be believed, but we aren’t there yet.

“We have seen changes with #MeToo,” Jelgic says. “But there is still a long way to go.”