The videographer, Michael Oberlies, is alleging that the footage was released by a freelancer who was hired to fill in for him while he was out of state for a few days.

“For over two years we have been working on a project profiling Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs,” Oberlies said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “The footage in question was not released by me or anyone authorized to handle Sean Combs’ materials; it was by a third party who covered for me for three days while I was out of state. This incident had nothing to do with any fee dispute or contract issue.

“The actions of the parties involved reflect the lack of integrity every storyteller should uphold. Taking footage intended for our project to advance a narrative that was not our own is both unethical and unacceptable.”

The footage Oberlies is referencing features clips of Combs in his New York City hotel room days before his September 2024 arrest, when he was indicted on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges that accused him of hitting and abusing women for over a decade and presiding over an empire of sexual crimes.

The footage featured in the Netflix docuseries, produced by 50 Cent, shares conversations with Combs’ legal team about how to navigate the case.

“We have to find somebody that’ll work with us. Whether they’re from this country or from another country, it could be somebody that has the dirtiest of dirtiest dirty business of media and propaganda,” Combs told his lawyer Marc Agnifilo on the phone, before adding, “We’re losing.”

In another scene, Combs meets fans in Harlem, where he later says he needs hand sanitizer because he was “out in the streets amongst the people.”

“The amount of people that actually I’m coming in contact with, that’s what I have to do,” he said while asking the people around him for hand sanitizer. “It’s time to cleanse, I got to go under the water, water got to be boiling hot, put some peroxide in that.”

3:54 Sean “Diddy” Combs claims new Netflix doc uses “stolen footage” depicting days leading up to his arrest

A day before the docuseries was released on Netflix, a representative for Combs issued a statement, calling it a “shameful hit piece.”

“Today’s GMA (Good Morning America) teaser confirms that Netflix relied on stolen footage that was never authorized for release. As Netflix and CEO Ted Sarandos know, Mr. Combs has been amassing footage since he was 19 to tell his own story, in his own way. It is fundamentally unfair, and illegal, for Netflix to misappropriate that work,” the Dec. 1 statement read.

Combs’ rep said Netflix was “plainly desperate to sensationalize every minute of Mr. Combs’s life, without regard for truth, in order to capitalize on a never-ending media frenzy.”

“If Netflix cared about truth or about Mr. Combs’s legal rights, it would not be ripping private footage out of context – including conversations with his lawyers that were never intended for public viewing. No rights in that material were ever transferred to Netflix or any third party,” the statement said.

“No rights in that material were ever transferred to Netflix or any third party,” the statement continued. “It is equally staggering that Netflix handed creative control to Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson — a longtime adversary with a personal vendetta who has spent too much time slandering Mr. Combs.”

In a statement provided to Netflix’s official news website, Tudum, Sean Combs: The Reckoning director Alexandria Stapleton said the behind-the-scenes footage “came to us.”

“We obtained the footage legally and have the necessary rights. One thing about Sean Combs is that he’s always filming himself, and it’s been an obsession throughout the decades,” Stapleton said.

She also claimed that the docuseries team “reached out to Sean Combs’ legal team for an interview and comment multiple times, but did not hear back.”

1:46 Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs not guilty of racketeering, sex trafficking in split verdict

In a second statement to Deadline from a Netflix spokesperson, the streamer doubled down, saying, “The footage of Combs leading up to his indictment and arrest were legally obtained. This is not a hit piece or an act of retribution. Curtis Jackson is an executive producer but does not have creative control. No one was paid to participate.”

50 Cent insisted the docuseries isn’t part of a “personal vendetta” to take Combs down.

“I’m not doing this as some personal mission. I’m telling a story no one else is telling because I don’t have the fear that others feel towards him. I’m not afraid at all,” he told Us Weekly in an interview on Tuesday.

When asked how he acquired the footage filmed before Combs’ arrest, 50 Cent said, “A journalist would ask that, but a journalist would also say, ‘I’m going to keep my sources secure.'”

Combs is currently serving 50 months in prison after a New York jury found him guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution while acquitting him of the most serious charges of racketeering and sex trafficking.

The 56-year-old disgraced hip-hop mogul was originally scheduled to get out of prison on May 8, 2028, but the date has now been changed to June 4, 2028, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ online database.

47 Ronin director Carl Erik Rinsch has been found guilty of defrauding Netflix out of $11 million for a show that never materialized, while he used the money for lavish purchases, including a Ferrari, several Rolls-Royces and luxury bedding, the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said.

Rinsch was found guilty following a one-week trial. He was convicted of one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering — each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced on Thursday.

He was also found guilty of five counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The director began filming White Horse around 2017, which follows a scientist who creates a human-like species that turns against its creators, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors said Netflix had initially paid Rinsch about $44 million between 2018 and 2019 for an unfinished sci-fi series, and then sent another $11 million around March 6, 2020, after he said he needed additional funding to wrap up the production.

Instead of putting the money toward the show, Rinsch transferred the cash into a “number of different bank accounts before consolidating them in a personal brokerage account,” according to prosecutors.

Rinsch then used those funds to make a number of personal and speculative purchases. He made a series of failed investments, losing around half of the $11 million in a couple of months, prosecutors said.

2:17 Netflix to buy Warner Bros. film & streaming business for US$72B

He then put the remaining funds into the cryptocurrency market and “on personal expenses and luxury items, including at least $1.7 million on credit card bills; at least $3.3 million on furniture, antiques, and mattresses; at least $387,000 on a Swiss watch; and at least $2.4 million on five Rolls Royces and a red Ferrari,” according to prosecutors.

“Carl Erik Rinsch took $11 million meant for a TV show and gambled it on speculative stock options and crypto transactions,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton. “Today’s conviction shows that when someone steals from investors, we will follow the money and hold them accountable.”

In a statement to The New York Times, Rinsch’s lawyer, Benjamin Zeman, said he disagreed with the verdict.

“I fear that this could set a dangerous precedent for artists who become embroiled in contractual and creative disputes with their benefactors, in this case, one of the largest media companies in the world, finding themselves indicted by the federal government for fraud,” Zeman said.

Netflix said they had no comment when contacted by Global News about Rinsch’s conviction.

Rinsch was charged in March “for engaging in a scheme to defraud a subscription video on-demand streaming service” after failing to complete the production of White Horse.

“Carl Erik Rinsch orchestrated a scheme to steal millions by soliciting a large investment from a video streaming service, claiming that money would be used to finance a television show that he was creating. But that was fiction. Rinsch instead allegedly used the funds on personal expenses and investments, including highly speculative options and cryptocurrency trading,” acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said in March.

“Rinsch’s arrest is a reminder that this Office and our partners at the FBI remain vigilant in the fight against fraud and will bring those who cheat and steal to justice,” Podolsky added.

A sentencing hearing for Rinsch has been set for April 17, 2026.

—With files from The Associated Press

The Black Sabbath lead singer died in July at the age of 76, nearly five years after he revealed his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and just two weeks after his last live performance with the original lineup of the band at Villa Park soccer stadium in their home city of Birmingham, central England.

In an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, released on Dec. 10, Sharon, 73, said her husband’s final words to her were: “Kiss me. Hug me tight.”

“The night before he passed, he was up and down to the bathroom all night, and it was like 4:30 a.m., and he said, ‘Wake up.’ I said, ‘I’m already bloody awake, you’ve woken me up,'” Sharon recalled. “And he said, ‘Kiss me,'” she shared. “And then he said, ‘Hug me tight.'”

Sharon began to tear up as she remembered their last moment together and questioned if there was more she could have done.

“If only I’d have told him I loved him more. If only I’d have held him tighter,” she said.

She said the next morning Ozzy went downstairs to exercise for 20 minutes before he “passed away” after she said he suffered a heart attack.

Sharon said there was screaming in the house and she ran down to the gym to see what was happening.

“I ran downstairs, and there he was, and they were trying to resuscitate him, and I’m like, ‘Don’t — just leave him. Leave him. You can’t. He’s gone,” she recalled.

In that moment, Sharon said she “knew instantly” that her husband of more than 43 years was “gone.”

“And they tried and tried, and then they took him by helicopter to the hospital and they tried, and it’s like, ‘He’s gone. Just leave him.'”

Sharon also shared that Ozzy said he was having “really vivid dreams” during the last week of his life, where he was “seeing people that he never knew.”

“I said, ‘Well, what kind of people?’ He goes, ‘All different people and I just keep walking and walking, and I’m seeing all these different people every night, and I go back there and I’m looking at these people and they’re looking at me and nobody’s talking.’ And he knew he was ready,” she told Morgan.

0:57 2026 Grammy Awards: Osbourne family pay tribute to Ozzy, announce rock and metal nominees

She said that Ozzy asked her if she thought she’d ever get married again after he passed.

“I’m like, ‘F— off, are you joking?’ Piss off,” she said, while laughing.

Morgan asked Sharon if she could ever “imagine marrying anybody else.”

“Never. Oh my god. No. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. No,” she responded.

Reflecting on Osbourne’s final performance, Sharon said that the Crazy Train singer “didn’t want to die on stage” but “he knew that it was that close.”

“He’d been so ill this year — terribly, terribly ill. And when we came to England and we were meeting with new doctors here, a new medical team for him, the main doctor said to him, ‘If you do this show, that’s it. You’re not going to get through it.’ And we just sat there and he said, ‘I’m doing it. I want to do it and I’m doing it,'” she recalled.

Sharon said her husband’s body was “failing” and he was in “so much pain.”

“He had pneumonia three times this year. He’d had sepsis and that’s what really, really destroyed him. I mean, he was on these shots of antibiotics. It used to take 20 minutes for the shot to go in and he had that twice a day. And it kills everything in you, the good, the bad, everything. So much antibiotics and he just couldn’t get over that,” she shared.

She said that he went through with the final show because he wanted “so bad to say thank you to everyone.”

“I think he honestly did know that he was done. It was his time,” she said, confirming that Ozzy knew if he went ahead with the show that it could kill him.

Sharon said Ozzy was “so happy” after being able to participate in his final event, honouring his musical legacy and performing several songs solo before being joined onstage for the first time in 20 years by his former Black Sabbath bandmates. The band ended a short set with Paranoid, one of its most famous songs.

“He kept looking at the papers, and he goes to me, ‘I never knew so many people liked me,’ but that was the way he was,” Sharon said. “I mean, he knew he was famous, but not the amount that people loved him. It’s a whole different thing, and he was just so happy, so so happy.”

2:02 No Ordinary Man: Ozzy Osbourne, heavy metal legend and Black Sabbath frontman, dies at 76

On July 22, Ozzy’s family announced that he had died, saying, “It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time.”

Thousands of fans lined Broad Street in Birmingham, England, on July 30 to say goodbye to the rock icon during a funeral procession.

Sharon and two of the couple’s children, Jack and Kelly, followed the late rocker’s hearse in a car as it made its way through the streets of the English city where Ozzy grew up and where Black Sabbath was formed in 1968.

View image in full screen

Six vehicles carrying the Osbourne family — who covered all costs for the procession — followed the hearse. They got out of their vehicles to look at the goodbye messages left for Osbourne.

A private funeral service was held for the Osbourne family and close friends later in the day at an undisclosed location.