Clayton Howard, the man who says he was hired for Diddy’s so-called freak-off encounters, now says parts of his own story were wrong.
In a signed declaration, Howard acknowledged inaccuracies in his claims against Sean “Diddy” Combs and Cassie, and he wants to strip out one of the most striking allegations in his case.
That allegation was that he was confined for roughly 12 hours during a December 2016 encounter in Miami. Howard is also looking to remove claims that Diddy’s security staff took his belongings.
“The revision corrects statements in Exhibit 1 that I concluded were inaccurate,” Howard wrote. He said he checked his account against his own memory and the record from Diddy’s criminal trial after reading replies filed by the defense.
The timing matters. Howard is asking permission to replace a proposed sixth amended complaint, while the dismissal motions from both defense teams target his fifth. He’s representing himself, and he said both sides oppose this latest request.
His earlier complaint painted a vivid picture of that night. “Plaintiff’s agreement to attend the Miami encounter did not extend to being deprived of his clothing, identification, and telephone; to witnessing an assault; or to being confined for approximately twelve hours in a room he could not leave,” it read.
The same filing said loud music kept him from hearing what happened in the master suite after he was ordered out.
Howard also wants to drop his California sexual-assault claim altogether. He’s proposing to narrow his New York trafficking claim so it targets Diddy alone.
Cassie’s legal team has been pushing hard. In an October 7 reply, her lawyer Mélodie C. Han argued that Howard never linked the singer’s conduct to forced participation, and that his own timeline placed the alleged confinement after the sexual encounter, with Diddy in control.
“Based on Plaintiff’s own allegations, it was money that caused his participation, not coercion or fraud,” the reply stated.
Diddy’s side filed separately the same day. Attorney Jonathan D. Gottlieb argued Howard hadn’t shown how any alleged drugging or restraint caused a commercial sex act.
He also challenged efforts to hold Bad Boy Entertainment and CeOpco liable without specific facts about each company’s role.
Howard isn’t only trimming, though. He’s trying to add new details about staff members allegedly arranging the encounters, which suggests he still sees a path forward even as he gives up ground elsewhere.
All of this unfolds in the shadow of Diddy’s criminal case. A jury in 2025 acquitted him of racketeering and sex trafficking but convicted him on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution, and Cassie was a central witness at that trial.
Both defense teams want Howard’s suit ended without another rewrite, and the court now has to decide if he gets one more shot.
