Videographer’s ‘Unpaid’ Footage Shot for Sean Combs Ends Up in Netflix Documentary

A new Netflix documentary about Sean “Diddy” Combs features never-before-seen footage shot by an unnamed videographer who was allegedly never paid for the work. Combs is now arguing that the footage was never authorized for release.

Sean Combs: The Reckoning, which debuted on December 2 and quickly reached the top of Netflix’s charts, includes intimate behind-the-scenes footage of the music mogul in the days leading up to his arrest on sex-trafficking charges in September 2024. Directed by Alexandria Stapleton and produced by 50 Cent, the four-part series opens with scenes, showing the mogul in a Manhattan hotel room preparing to “fight for my life.”

According to the filmmakers, the footage was captured by a videographer Combs hired during those final days of freedom. Multiple reports claim that the videographer, whose identity the documentary team sought to keep confidential, was never paid by Combs after he was taken into custody.

The dispute over ownership and authorization of the footage now sits at the centre of a high-profile clash between Diddy and Netflix. In a cease-and-desist letter sent last week, Combs’ lawyers demanded Netflix withdraw the Sean Combs: The Reckoning series, arguing the footage was “never authorized for release” and had been provided in violation of contractual agreements. The letter contends the material includes “privileged communications” with legal counsel and accuses the platform of copyright infringement.

“It is fundamentally unfair, and illegal, for Netflix to misappropriate that work,” Combs’ spokesman Juda Engelmayer said, adding that the footage included “private moments, pre-indictment material from an unfinished project, and conversations involving legal strategy that were not intended for public viewing.”

Netflix disputes the claims, and the documentary’s director Stapleton says the filmmakers acquired the footage lawfully. She says they fought hard to keep Diddy’s videographer’s identity confidential.

“It came to us, we obtained the footage legally, and have the necessary rights. We moved heaven and earth to keep the filmmaker’s identity confidential,” Stapleton says in a statement for Netflix. “One thing about Sean Combs is that he’s always filming himself, and it’s been an obsession throughout the decades.”

Combs’ former publicist Rob Shuter further says that the mogul routinely hired photographers and videographs to follow him but avoided putting any formal agreements in place for their work. Shuter claims that the lack of formal contracts — and the fact the videographer was never paid — is what allowed the footage to end up in the Netflix documentary.

“He always had photographers and video crews trailing him — everywhere, all the time — but because he was cheap, he refused to do formal contracts,” Shuter writes. “Diddy never paid the videographer. And he never had a signed contract.”