Singer Dawn Richard was ‘absolutely terrified’ of Diddy, lawyer says

On Thursday, Ms Bloom also told Newsnight she has another client who is preparing to come forward with allegations relating to parties thrown by Mr Combs, which were dubbed “freak-offs”.

“But many other people already have come forward with the allegations that people were drugged, that they were forced into sexual activity in order to have business deals with Sean Combs,” she said.

Mr Combs is due back in court on Friday to make a new request for bail in his criminal case. Judges have previously denied his bail requests, citing a risk that he might tamper with witnesses.

Earlier this week, prosecutors alleged that he had broken prison rules by contacting potential witnesses by using other inmates’ telephone accounts.

According to the New York Times, external, prosecutors have focused on a witness named Kalenna Harper, who was the third member of Diddy – Dirty Money alongside Mr Combs and Ms Richard.

Prosecutors say Mr Combs had 128 phone contacts with Ms Harper shortly after Ms Richard filed her lawsuit, US media reported, external.

Ms Harper put out a statement saying Ms Richard’s allegations “are not representative of my experiences, and some do not align with my own truth”.

On Newsnight, Ms Bloom did not name Ms Harper, but said there was a woman who Ms Richard had worked with who “came out publicly and essentially called my client a liar”.

She continued: “The strong implication there is that he talked her into making those statements, perhaps gave her money. We don’t know.

“But that would be witness tampering. That’s what the government argued. The judge agreed and he was denied bail as a result, which he should have been.”

However, Mr Combs’ lawyers have argued that Ms Harper’s statement was “the furthest thing from witness obstruction I can think of”, and was just “two witnesses having divergent recollections of similar events”.