Sean “Diddy” Combs is on trial for very serious charges, but there have still been a few moments of levity in the courtroom — particularly with regard to jury selection.
As proceedings kicked off in New York City the week of Monday, May 5, Us Weekly was inside the courtroom as Judge Arun Subramanian questioned potential jurors, who will spend the next two months listening to testimony. In order to whittle down the contenders, the judge asked how much they knew about the case but also gathered info on what might cause jurors to express bias: their past crimes, for example, or whether they personally knew celebrities like Michael B. Jordan and Mike Myers.
The judge even added some humor himself, joking that the list of names and places involved in the case is as long as an appendix from The Lord of the Rings. He also laughed and quipped “shame on you” when Juror 55 confessed to having gotten a ticket for carrying an open container of alcohol.
Diddy, 55, was arrested in September 2024 and charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and has denied all of the allegations against him.
“We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Diddy’s attorney Marc Agnifilo said in a statement at the time. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal. To his credit Mr. Combs has been nothing but cooperative with this investigation and he voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. Please reserve your judgment until you have all the facts. These are the acts of an innocent man with nothing to hide, and he looks forward to clearing his name in court.”
Keep scrolling for some of the wildest juror interactions from the Diddy trial:
Juror 7He was hesitant to take time off work having landed a new job last month. When the judge asked why he should be excused, he replied, “To pay my mortgage.”
Juror 8When asked about past crimes, she said she was caught shoplifting a magic wand from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios and was banned for a year.
When asked whether the timeline would be a problem, she replied it might conflict with the Spirit Weavers Gathering in Oregon, which she has nonrefundable tickets for. She described the event as “some pretty artsy women in the woods.”
Juror 140During a line of questioning about what media they consume, Juror 140 noted they watch “a lot more sports since the Mets became good again.”
Juror 143This juror’s most recent brush with the law came about a week earlier, when they were accused of credit card theft.
When the judge ordered him not to use marijuana during the trial, Juror 210 admitted he’d used it the night before and said it would be hard to go cold turkey for two months. In response, the judge quipped, “He was honest.”
Juror 220This potential juror noted that his father runs a “canna-bus” company, so he has no bias toward drugs, and he’s an alum of Diddy’s high school (though he attended 30 years later). Juror 220 also earned the honor of explaining the concept of doom-scrolling to the judge, who replied, “I don’t really use social media.”
Juror 239She once fainted when a teacher brought up oral sex and told her classmates that she fell asleep, so she was worried about the potentially explicit nature of the trial. She was dismissed.
