Lucian Grainge, a member of Northeastern’s Board of Trustees and CEO of Universal Music Group, was dismissed from a lawsuit claiming he aided and abetted rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs in alleged sexual abuse.
Grainge, who was listed among around 30 defendants in the sexual assault and trafficking civil case in February, was dismissed in May after Tyrone Blackburn — the lawyer who filed the case on behalf of his client and music producer Rodney Jones — admitted there was “no legal basis for the claim.”
Grainge has served on Northeastern’s Board of Trustees since 2013 and is a member of the board’s financial affairs committee. Grainge was knighted in 2016 for “his accomplishments in the music industry and his leadership.” He was included in Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th Birthday Honors list, noting him as “one of the most accomplished music executives and foremost leaders in the media industry.”
The suit, filed Feb. 26, alleged Grainge sponsored and attended several of Comb’s infamous parties which “had sex workers and underage girls present.” It went on to allege that during the parties, Grainge “knew or should have known that Mr. Combs was drugging the attendees through laced bottles of DeLeon Tequila and Ciroc Vodka.”
Additional claims said that Grainge, alongside four additional defendants, “knowingly and intentionally benefitted, financially and by receiving things of value, from participating in, assisting, supporting and facilitating an illegal coercive sex-trafficking venture that was in and affecting interstate and foreign commerce.”
Attorneys for Grainge argued the allegations were “offensively false” and planned to seek penalties against Blackburn, Billboard reported in May.
In a sworn declaration submitted to the court May 13, Blackburn said that after reviewing Grainge and Universal Music Group’s, or UMG’s, objections, he determined there was “no legal basis for the claims and allegations that were made against the UMG defendants.” He requested the claims be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning they could not be refiled in the future.
In a court filing following Blackburn’s declaration, Donald Zakarin, UMG’s lead attorney, agreed that the accusations against Grainge should be dismissed.
“As we have repeatedly said from our very first communication with counsel for the plaintiff on March 4, 2024, there was no basis, not legal and not factual for the claims and accusations that were alleged,” Zakarin wrote. “The UMG defendants should never have been named in any of these companies and we should never have been required to make motions to dismiss the complaints in the action.”
Zakarin said the complaint was “offensively reckless” and affirmed that Grainge “has been improperly dragged into this matter despite having no knowledge of, nor any involvement in, any of Mr. Combs’ alleged conduct,” in a previous statement to The News.
The lawsuit is ongoing, with the latest action being a court order for extension granted Oct. 2, allowing remaining Combs defendants to file “any reply brief in support of their motion to dismiss” by Oct. 18.
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