Sean “Diddy” Combs is set to be sentenced over prostitution-related charges next week.

The hip-hop mogul has already served just over a year in prison after being arrested in New York in September 2023.

Following his high-profile trial earlier in 2025, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation for engagement in prostitution – but cleared of the more serious charges of sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

Combs, 55, was one of the most influential hip-hop producers of the 1990s and 2000s, the founder of Bad Boy Records and a Grammy-winning artist in his own right.

Now, he faces up to 20 years in jail – although his defence team is arguing for much less.

Here is everything you need to know ahead of his sentencing.

What is transportation to engage in prostitution?

During the trial, the court heard details of sexual encounters called “freak offs” by Combs – also referred to as “hotel nights” – which involved his girlfriends and male sex workers.

The rapper would “orchestrate” these encounters between the women and the sex workers, while he watched. Sometimes, these sessions would take place in different states across the US, as well as abroad, and Combs would pay for the sex workers and the women to travel.

He was found guilty of two charges – one relating to sex workers he paid for while in a relationship with singer and model Cassie Ventura, and another relating to sex workers who took part in sessions with Jane*, a woman he was later in a relationship with who was not identified during the trial.

The charges fall under America’s Mann Act, which prohibits interstate commerce related to prostitution.

What about the other charges?

Combs was found not guilty of two counts of sex-trafficking, relating to both Cassie and Jane, and one count of racketeering conspiracy.

This means while jurors believed Combs broke the law over using sex workers, they did not find the sexual encounters involving the women were non-consensual, which is what prosecutors had argued.

Both Cassie and Jane gave evidence, telling the court they felt manipulated and coerced, and sometimes blackmailed, into taking part in the freak offs during their relationships with the rapper. However, defence lawyers argued these were consensual encounters and part of a “swingers lifestyle”.

“The men chose to travel and engage in the activity voluntarily,” defence lawyers said in legal submissions after the verdict. “The verdict confirms the women were not vulnerable or exploited or trafficked or sexually assaulted during the freak offs or hotel nights.”

What is racketeering?

Racketeering broadly means engaging in an illegal scheme or enterprise, and the charge falls under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO) in the US. According to the US justice department’s definition of RICO statute, it is also illegal to “conspire to violate” the laws.

Prosecutors alleged Combs led a racketeering conspiracy “that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labour, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, among other crimes”. However, jurors also cleared him of this charge.

Had he been found guilty of the more serious charges, he could have faced life in prison.

Will Combs be jailed for 20 years?

Each charge of transportation to engage in prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, so in theory he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.

However, it is thought his sentence will be less than this. Following the verdict, prosecutors said he should be sentenced to at least four to five years.

The music mogul has been denied bail several times since his arrest and again since the trial.

What do his lawyers say?

Following the trial verdict, both prosecutors and the defence team have made arguments to the judge about sentencing.

Most recently, Combs’s lawyers submitted a legal submission to the court calling for the rapper to be jailed for no more than 14 months – which after time already served would mean him walking free almost immediately.

Before this, they called for Combs to be acquitted or for a retrial on the prostitution-related charges. The US government “painted him as a monster”, they said, but argued his two-month trial showed the allegations were “not supported by credible evidence”.

The rapper’s lawyers have argued that, to their knowledge, he is “the only person” ever convicted of the Mann Act charges for the conduct he was accused of in court.

What has the judge said?

Judge Arun Subramanian, who presided over the trial, will decide Combs’s fate.

He has previously decided several times not to grant bail, saying the hip-hop mogul’s team have failed to show sufficient evidence he is not a flight risk and also citing admissions of previous violence made during the trial.

During her opening statement, Teny Geragos, who is on Combs’s defence team, described him as “a complicated man” and conceded he could be violent. However, she argued, this was not the charge against him.

Will Combs try to revive his career after ‘unspeakable shame’?

Despite being convicted of the prostitution-related charges, his lawyers hailed the verdict a “victory”, given he was cleared of the more serious allegations. In interviews since, they have said he is planning a return to music with a New York gig.

However, in legal submissions, they have also said the trial brought Combs “unspeakable shame and monumental adverse consequences” and that his “legacy has been destroyed”.

Read more:
The rise and fall of Sean Combs

After allegations against him were made public, Combs was removed from the boards at three charter schools he created in Harlem, the Bronx and Connecticut and was also stripped of an honorary doctorate degree from Howard University, which plans to return his prior donations, they said.

He was also forced to return the key to the city of New York that was previously presented to him by the mayor, and his career has “collapsed”.

As well as this case, he is also still facing several civil lawsuits – and has “mounting legal bills” from defending these and the criminal charges, his lawyers have said.

Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show will return to ABC affiliates belonging to Sinclair and Nexstar after the two major network operators took his programme off-air over his comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Kimmel was accused of being “offensive and insensitive” after using his programme, Jimmy Kimmel Live, to accuse Donald Trump and his allies of capitalising on the killing.

Disney-owned ABC suspended the show last week following threats of potential repercussions from the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sinclair, which controls 38 ABC affiliates from Seattle to Washington DC, called on Kimmel to apologise to Mr Kirk’s family over the comments and asked him to “make a meaningful personal donation” to Turning Point USA, the nonprofit that the conservative activist founded.

On Tuesday, Disney announced the return of the programme after backlash to its suspension, but both Sinclair and Nexstar, which own more than 20% of ABC affiliates, initially said they would not resume airing the show.

Kimmel criticised the ABC affiliates who preempted his show during his TV return, saying: “That’s not legal. That’s not American. It’s un-American.”

Three days later, the two major network operators announced that Jimmy Kimmel Live would return to their TV stations after the week-long boycott.

The move came after Sinclair received “thoughtful feedback from viewers, advertisers and community leaders”.

In its statement, the company pointed to its “responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honouring our obligations to air national network programming.”

Nexstar, which controls 28 ABC affiliates from Kansas to New Orleans, said in a similar statement that it was airing content that is “in the best interest of the communities we serve”.

Both companies said their decisions were not affected by influence from the Trump administration or anyone else.

The president had criticised the programme’s return on Tuesday, writing on Truth Social that he “can’t believe” ABC gave Kimmel his show back and hinted at further action.

“Why would they want someone back who does so poorly, who’s not funny, and who puts the Network in jeopardy by playing 99% positive Democrat GARBAGE,” Mr Trump wrote.

“He is yet another arm of the DNC (Democratic National Committee) and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this.”

During Kimmel’s first show since being taken off-air, the presenter said it was “never my intention to make light of” Mr Kirk’s death.

“I don’t think there’s anything funny about it,” he said as he choked up.

“Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make”.

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Speaking on Tuesday night’s show, Kimmel said he understood why the remarks “felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both”.

New episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live air Monday to Thursday, and Friday night’s rerun will be of Tuesday’s show, meaning viewers of Sinclair stations will be able to watch Kimmel’s emotional return to the air.

It’s hard to believe it’s 35 years since a plasticine man in a sweater and slippers, along with his voiceless, but hugely expressive dog, burst on to our screens and won the hearts of millions with their mix of humour, charm and nostalgia.

Wallace and Gromit managed to be both familiar and fresh, and their modest creator Nick Park couldn’t have foreseen how their handmade adventures would change the world of animation and make Wensleydale cheese internationally famous.

But three decades on and Preston-born Park is beginning to realise that his flair for feel-good filmmaking has made him a very big deal.

Oscar wins and box office hits aside, his latest accolade, in the Lancashire city where he was born and bred, clearly means a lot.

A new Wallace and Gromit exhibition is being showcased at the Harris Museum, which Park visited frequently growing up.

The historic landmark looms large over the city centre and is filled with artefacts and treasures that inspired him as a boy.

He was drawn to the library and devoured books on his favourite subject, you guessed it, animation.

The museum has been closed for four years as part of a £19m revamp. And who better to re-open it this weekend than Park.

As we meet at the exhibition, he tells me he was a quiet child who loved drawing. Visits to the museum helped shape his creativity and storytelling.

He said: “I used to love spending a day around here looking at all the artefacts, the paintings. I used to come to the library here, there was no internet, and so I would look for books on animation.

“I would scour the library for anything I could get my hands on.”

We chat in a life-size replica of Wallace and Gromit’s living room. The wallpaper, standing lamp and armchair are so familiar.

Park says it’s like sitting in one of his own sets.

The living room was actually based on his grandma’s house, which he describes as a cosy 1960s home. And as he sits in the chair with his cup of tea, he jokes that he’s now turned into Wallace.

He said: “I feel like I’m made of clay, sitting on a replica set, it’s just incredible.”

But that’s the joy of his films – the personal touch. And whilst they’re unmistakably Northern, inspired by Park’s family and upbringing, they’re also universally relatable.

He said: “I used to draw from my own childhood a lot, and that’s what inspired me. Because it feels true to do that.

“So, I went to memories of my granny, the lamp stand that my granny had and other objects, toasters, clocks, you name it.”

Park is now arguably as famous as his much-loved characters. Something he seems to be finally getting used to.

He says he’s honoured and a little overwhelmed that his hometown holds him and his clay creations so close to his heart.

He said: “I was a shy teenager, and just talking about this hobby, I never imagined they would become household names.

“So, to have statues of my characters in the centre of town and now to be opening this newly refurbished exhibition and my own exhibition. To be here with my own characters, it’s just crazy.”

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I ask what this stop motion supremo makes of the use of AI and technology in film.

He said: “We need to hang onto our values, there’s something about handmade quality that gives everything charm and appeal.

“It would probably be wrong to completely ignore that.”

The exhibition is immersive and emotive. Being up close and personal with the models, drawings, and characters evokes the same feelings as the films do. Warmth, humour and nostalgia.

A journey through the formative years of a young filmmaker and the birth of one of cinema’s unlikeliest heroes.

Park is now inspiring the next generation of storytellers and filmmakers at the museum, which played such an important part in his own success story.

Wallace and Gromit in A Case at the Museum Exhibition opens on Sunday and runs until January.