Sean “Diddy” Combs’ civil attorneys asked a federal judge on Sept. 16 to let them quit his $100 million defamation lawsuit, saying he has gone more than six months without paying his legal bills or returning their calls, according to TMZ. The filing lands in the middle of a case Combs is currently winning, which makes the timing unusual.
The withdrawal motion comes from the New York firm Sher Tremonte, whose attorney Michael Tremonte told the court his firm has had no meaningful communication with Combs in four months, according to DancehallMag. Combs is serving a 50-month sentence at Fort Dix federal prison on two prostitution-related convictions, and he is representing his own interests in the civil fight from behind bars.
Why Combs Is Suing a Cable News Network for $100 Million
Combs filed the underlying defamation suit in January 2025 against Nexstar Media, the parent company of NewsNation, along with attorney Ariel Mitchell and Courtney Burgess, and later amended it to raise the damages sought from $50 million to $100 million, according to Rolling Out. The suit centers on claims aired on NewsNation that Burgess possessed 11 flash drives supposedly containing sex tapes of Combs, and that Mitchell went on air backing a related claim that Combs “used drugs mixed into baby oil to incapacitate people.”
U.S. District Judge John Cronan refused to throw out the case on Sept. 4, ruling that Combs had adequately alleged Mitchell acted with actual malice and that her baby oil claim carried “precise, legally actionable meaning rather than protected opinion or exaggeration,” Rolling Out reported. Burgess never responded to the suit at all, and the court entered a default judgment against him, according to DancehallMag.
Mitchell has pushed back publicly on the suit, characterizing it as “an attempt to silence victims and people who support them” and saying she intends to countersue on the grounds that Combs’ case against her is frivolous, according to Rolling Out.
What the Withdrawal Motion Says About the Money
Sher Tremonte’s filing describes Combs as having accumulated a “substantial balance of attorney’s fees” and being in “substantial arrears,” with his last payment coming more than six months ago, TMZ reported. The firm argues Combs “deliberately disregards an agreement or obligation to the lawyer as to expenses or fees,” language that goes beyond a routine billing dispute and effectively accuses him of stonewalling his own legal team.
Combs pushed back through a statement to Page Six, saying: “I won’t let anyone take advantage of me by overcharging me and running up bills that never were approved,” according to TMZ.
His position is that the firm inflated its invoices rather than that he refused to pay a fair bill. Sher Tremonte has not filed a public response to that specific claim. The Criminal Case That Put Him Behind Bars
The civil fee dispute sits on top of the criminal case that put Combs in prison in the first place. A federal jury convicted him in July 2025 on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution under the Mann Act, while acquitting him of the more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian sentenced him on Oct. 3, 2025, to 50 months in prison, a $500,000 fine and five years of supervised release to follow.
At sentencing, Subramanian acknowledged that Combs had “inspired and lifted up communities worldwide” but told him he had “abused the power and control with women you professed to love,” according to NBC News. The judge described the two women whose testimony anchored the case as “brave survivors” and encouraged Combs to pursue “a true path to redemption.”
A Rare Case Where He’s Ahead but About to Be Unrepresented
The unusual part of this filing is the position it leaves Combs in. He has already beaten a motion to dismiss, and he already holds a default judgment against one of the three defendants he sued. Losing his attorneys now would strip him of counsel at the moment the case has the most momentum in his favor, forcing him to find new representation mid-case or continue managing the litigation from prison largely on his own.
Combs has already burned through significant legal spending this year. His criminal defense team cost him roughly $8 million by the time of his conviction, and his federal Bureau of Prisons release date has itself become a moving target recorded at Jan. 24, 2028, according to ABC News, though DancehallMag separately listed it as Feb. 5, 2028 in its report on the lawyer withdrawal, reflecting how often the date has shifted amid disciplinary issues, including a prison altercation in July that landed him in solitary confinement.
That altercation, at FCI Fort Dix during the week of July 24, began after another inmate insulted Combs, and the two “got into a scuffle and started pushing each other and throwing jabs” before staff separated them, according to TMZ. Prison staff placed Combs in solitary confinement afterward, and the incident could cost him the good-behavior credits his release date currently assumes he will earn, TMZ reported.
The $100 million defamation case is also not the only civil litigation Combs is fending off from prison. A former child actor filed a new lawsuit against him in June 2026 accusing him of sexual assault, according to CNN, adding to a string of civil claims that have continued to be filed against him even after his criminal conviction and sentencing. If the fee dispute over a civil case is any indication, Combs’ legal bills are not slowing down even as he serves out his sentence and fights off new claims on multiple fronts.
A judge has not yet ruled on Sher Tremonte’s motion. If granted, Combs would need to retain new counsel to keep the defamation case moving, or proceed without a lawyer while it heads toward trial.
