50 Cent slams 'idiot' Diddy, insists Netflix doc isn't a 'hit piece'

NEW YORK – Late last year, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson released a documentary about his embattled rap rival, Sean “Diddy” Combs.

But for the hip-hop titan, their longstanding feud wasn’t the sole motivator behind the film.

“It wasn’t ‘beef’ that made me make the decision to make the docuseries,” Jackson said, speaking during a post-screening Q&A June 2 for Netflix’s “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” a global streaming hit since its release in December 2025.

Jackson, 50, had been developing the project for six months before filmmaker Alexandria Stapleton ("Reggie") came aboard.

“I was looking for the right director because I didn’t want it to be a hit piece,” Jackson said, smirking. “But it went No. 1 in 31 countries. It’s a hit.”

“The Reckoning” is a four-episode deep dive into the troubled life and career of Harlem-bred mogul Combs, who was convicted last July on two federal counts of transportation to engage in prostitution and sentenced to 50 months in prison. (He was acquitted of the more severe charges of sex trafficking and racketeering.)

The docuseries features interviews with many of Combs’ ex-employees and collaborators, some of whom alleged that he physically and sexually abused them. At times, interview subjects backed out of filming last minute because they feared what might happen to them if Combs’ associates found out. Stapleton, too, said she was sometimes afraid during production.

“I assured her she’d be fine,” Jackson recalled. He told her, “'Whatever happens, you can blame it on me.' … There was a point before we released it where they were prepping us for legal [reasons]. I was like, ‘This feels like a deposition prep.’ We were doing publicity for the docuseries, but they were really anal about what we could say and couldn’t say, which was really killing me.”

Jackson made the screening audience gasp multiple times during the Q&A, with off-color remarks about some of Combs’ accusers. But he was also able to offer firsthand insight into the hip-hop world and what it was like to be in Combs’ orbit.

Combs, 56, once had a sprawling business empire that included Bad Boy Records, Sean Jean and a Cîroc partnership, among other ventures. As a result, Jackson suggested, many people were willing to excuse his bad behavior in hopes that he would open his pocketbook for them.

“It gave him a pass on a lot of things over a long period of time,” Jackson said. “He’d say things in front of everybody, like, ‘Yo, man, I love the way you’re scratching and scraping, daddy.’” His inappropriate comments made some men and women uncomfortable, “but they accepted it because it was coming from him.”

Jackson’s conflict with Combs goes back roughly two decades, due to a series of contract disputes, diss tracks and their competing alcohol brands. Speaking to the crowd at Manhattan’s IFC Center, Jackson didn’t miss a chance to take shots at his former peer.

Unlike Combs, “I don’t get off on hurting people,” Jackson said at one point. Later, Jackson poked fun at Combs, who hired a videographer to follow him around New York in the days leading up to his September 2024 arrest. (The footage was later obtained by the filmmakers and included in “The Reckoning.”)

“I can appreciate an idiot, at times, when you do something that crazy,” Jackson sneered. “Your lawyer would tell you not to even communicate. He was just cocky because he thought he would beat the case. But when you get hit by surprise RICO charges, you forget to pay that videographer.”